


Railway Lands

by Maelipstick



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Harry/Draco - Freeform, Junkie Death Eater Repair Kit, Kings Cross, M/M, Not Epilogue Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-05
Updated: 2010-12-07
Packaged: 2017-10-13 05:07:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 65,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/133294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maelipstick/pseuds/Maelipstick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Draco finds his own way to cope with being a failed Death Eater at Voldemort's headquarters. Voldemort finds a way to destroy the wizarding world even after his death. Harry is trying to hold the world together while his mind quietly comes apart.</p><p>Warnings for graphic drug use, depression and suicidal ideation, Draco being an arsehole, sex work, criminality, non-con sexual situations, shifting POVs, ofc werewolves, self neglect and self harm, general unprettiness, unplanned parenthood and references to other works of fiction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by short fic by Oxoniensis called Say Hello Before You Say Goodbye. She has generously allowed me to play with her vision and I am very grateful.
> 
> The Railway Lands were the derelict industrial lands to the rear of King's Cross station. At the time of this story they were a wilderness of drug addicts, homeless people and street sex-workers. They have since been demolished.
> 
> There's no way I would have got to the end of this fic without the support and encouragement of Schemingreader, who has nodded in all the right places and generally made of herself my number one cheerleader. Schee, this fic is for you.

Draco suffered from being unimaginative. Severus had told him so, several times, but most recently in that remote cottage, where the walls were nothing but stone and the view nothing but an endless rolling hill scape of yellowish green.

“Did you not think this would happen?” he’d said, sponging at the Hippogriff slashes on his arm. Real Hippogriff wounds, not like the flesh scratches he’d got back in the third year. Being good at pretending was not the same as having an imagination.

Draco looked sulkily out the window at the bare hills and the wet sheep.

“The Dark Lord expects loyalty,” whispered his former professor. Draco guessed that whatever he was now rubbing into the cleaned wounds must have stung, “Failure is not acceptable.”

Draco shrugged. He’d been so scared last year he wasn’t sure he was capable of fear anymore. Severus was buttoning up his sleeve.

“We will be summoned before nightfall,” he said smoothly. “I do not wish to know what treacherous weaknesses caused you to fail in your duty to the Dark Lord.”

Draco continued in his survey of the bleak land. He thought he could see the glitter of water on the far horizon, either a lake or the sea.

“I don’t want to hear them uttered out loud.”

That was fine as far as Draco was concerned; he didn’t have a bloody clue why he had failed.

“Whatever the thoughts were they should be hidden.”

Snape knew Draco was an Occlumens. He supposed this was a veiled hint that he should get practicing. He continued staring out the window, wondering at the tricks of the grey sky and the leaden light that made the water shine like that. He wasn’t afraid of what was going to happen because it was so far outside his frame of reference his mind could not get a grip on it. Snape had lived through Voldemort ascendant before; he knew what to expect. Draco had had some vague thoughts of honour and praise, of being looked up too, like perpetually winning the Quidditch cup. He’d had some strong thoughts of terror and panic when Greyback had breathed in his face and he’d smelt the rotting meat of last moon’s kill still stuck in his teeth. He’d felt disgust and fear at the dirtiness and the loss of self in those leering, bloodshot eyes. But he couldn’t imagine the world would change, even with the dark mark burned into his arm. He’d bragged to Pansy about not going back to Hogwarts, but couldn’t imagine it actually happening. He’d always sort of assumed that Hogwarts would be there for him even as he planned to kill the headmaster.

Draco was so good at keeping two opposing thoughts in his head at one time, he sometimes wondered if he was meant to have been born twins.

~*~

What happened was his knowledge and his frame of reference collided.

He’d known about Aunt Bella, of course. Even when his mother had shut that conversation down and told him not to spread nasty, muggle loving rumours, he’d known there was a reason Longbottom lived with his Gran and he knew Aunt Bella was it. It almost seemed funny at the time, semi-squib Longbottom and his drooling loony parents. He hadn’t processed the mechanics. They were just so far away from the business of breakfast dinner and tea, of buttered toast and homework and Hogwarts’ scratchy cotton sheets.

It became real with very little warning. Bella had put her wand at the base of his skull and that disgusting Wormtail creature had jabbed his into the base of his spine and they had both cast Crucio at the same time, while the Dark Lord had put the tip of his wand to his forehead and hissed “Legilimens”. That was how you sent a wizard mad.

The Longbottoms had taken thirty-two hours of it. Draco only had to put up with four. Pettigrew started weakening somewhere into it and there was a brief moment of respite as another wizard took over. It happened again, a bit later too, but Bella held steady and didn’t falter. She just stood there, staring at Voldemort like he was Guilderoy Lockheart while he kicked open doors in Draco’s brain.

He couldn’t have found anything of interest because eventually, he’d stopped. Someone had carried him upstairs to his bedroom and then he was back in the other world again, with his silver lunascope glinting on the table by the window and his broomstick propped up in the corner. He lay on the bed until Severus turned up and threw the blankets over him and left a potion on his bedside table.

Draco’s hands shook as he drunk it. It was like all the times he’s been sick and snotty in bed with the measles or chickenpox or whatever sticky ailments little children get. It was like that time he’d fallen of his broom. The wardrobe and the bed frame and the chandelier were all identical. The only difference was experience, and that made the room dirty and bad and the mirrors chipped because it didn’t belong there.

The potion wasn’t strong enough to take all the pain away, but it made the experience less of a problem.

~*~

They didn’t torture him again because they didn’t have to. There was clearly nothing of interest in his head, he had, after all, no imagination. What they wanted him to do mainly was torture other people. He was popular for that because he so obviously hated it, so the Death Eaters kind of got a two for the price of one.

In between times, he did his homework. Snape set it for him. Voldemort seemed to see no reason why Hogwarts shouldn’t be allowed to reopen, or Draco Malfoy allowed to return. Draco thought he couldn’t be the only one lacking on the imagination front. This sort of business as usual banality was the Death Eaters all over.

He was in the library studying confundus charms with a view towards practical application when he looked up from his book and realised he was being watched. The stupid bastard didn’t even look away when Draco glared at him; he just stood behind the bookshelf and continued to stare. Draco didn’t even have the power to make that change.

It was creepy, being watched in your own house, and it wasn’t even like his father had a wand to protect him with. If he went upstairs, he would follow him to the landing. Sometimes, he could hear pacing outside his bedroom door and knew it was him. He’d follow him to the dungeons when there was a new prisoner brought in and watch Draco unwillingly turn his wand on them. He’d sit next to Draco at meals. He stopped going outside because he didn’t want the watching to turn worse in a place where nobody else was there to enforce decorum. At least inside, he wasn’t allowed to touch what the Dark Lord hadn’t granted him. Inside, at least Snape would occasionally hex the little shit and tell him to put his eyes back in his head.

It seemed horribly unfair to blame him for not being able to foresee this as a future. Not even that mad baggage Trelawney could imagine a future this grim. The way everything had stayed familiar and everything had become tainted, right down to the Dark Lord taking his father’s wand and the feral werewolf camp that had moved into the old orchard, which was another excellent reason to stay indoors. A jagged gash was beginning to open in reality that divided everything irrevocably into two worlds, the rotten and the sound, and yet both existed in exactly the same space and time. For a few weeks, the oddness of this scenario threatened to make him very imaginative indeed.

He could feel his mind wanting to make explanations for this, explanations that were in places long ago or that had never been, but were places where all this could exist and be perfectly normal. It made him feel queasy, because all the thoughts seemed to centre round the fact that if two worlds so opposed could settle in one dimension, why not more?

There suddenly seemed a wide sweep of alternative realities all with the possibility of becoming real in sumptuous detail if he but moved one foot out of the daily ritual of breakfast and study and being stared at, lunch and potions and torture and high tea. He was walking a tightrope over a prism that was constantly breaking what he saw and throwing it back in perfectly coloured fragments. It made him lightheaded.

He never found out if he would have developed an imagination or not as one evening he discovered two feral werewolves in his Father’s potions store. They had their own answers to his problems.

~*~

It was the night they went out to get Potter. He wasn’t invited of course, although Dolohov had smiled and said that they would be certain to bring him back a few live ones for him to work on. He had laughed. Won’t you enjoy that, he had said.

He hadn’t been able to sleep that well, which was new to him. Normally, he slept like an erumpent in a mud wallow back at the Manor, even when the Hogwarts dorms had started to get too close. The stuffiness appeared to be following him around. On the positive front, the Manor’s visitors were frequently out of an evening, which meant he had the run of the place without the constant sound of footpads behind him. Of course, it also meant more prisoners for him to Crucio in the mornings too, but he always found he was better at it when he was ratty and cold from being awake all night.

Having nothing better to do, he’d often wonder down to his father’s potions room and start working through some of the trickier mixes in Draughts of Death or The Belladonna Brewmaster, or whatever else he could get off the library shelves without being shrieked at or squirted with blood. Potions were easy; they did what they were told. The doxy wings or niffler guts made no appeal to his conscience as he pounded and stirred, no matter how horrible the effects of the end potion. If it was particularly well done, he might even get an approving nod of Severus himself, although he seemed keener on getting Draco to practice his dark arts hexes these days.

Actually, what Snape had taken to doing was firing dark hexes at him and getting Draco to block them, which stank far too much of that prissy defence bullshit they’d done in school. Draco wondered if Snape had got the owl that the Dark side had won. If he was going to get ahead he needed to be the one firing the jinxes. He supposed Snape was still angry with him for making him kill the headmaster and wanted to give him a good blasting. It wasn’t too bad, really. It gave him some company of an afternoon and it kept his sneak away.

There had always been an incantation needed to get into the Malfoy potion room, one that needed Malfoy blood in the caster’s veins to make it work. Draco wasn’t supposed to know the incantation, but he’d sneaked down behind his father one day and hid behind the bust of Brutus Malfoy to hear him whisper it. Like most secrets of the Manor, Draco knew it should all have been passed on to him when he turned seventeen, but supposed events had rather driven it from his father’s mind. It wasn’t as if his father cared much for potions anyway. Draco guessed from the smell he mainly used the room to smoke those fat muggle cigars his mother hated.

Draco had put his hand against the door to draw his wand and had flinched when it had opened. Unexpectedly, he crossed the border into the rotten world, the one he thought the night kept him safe from.

Voldemort was reconfiguring the wards. The Manor didn’t belong to the Malfoys anymore. Four hundred years of loyalty undone at a stroke. Soon they would be here under sufferance. It didn’t feel like home anymore because it wasn’t. Home was where you were safe.

As if to emphasise the change of ownership, a glass stand of crystal flasks crashed to the ground as he entered the room. Draco shrugged. He didn’t need the Delirium still to tell him he was trespassing. He flicked his wand lazily and it reassembled itself. The room smelt stale, a fetid odour that was everywhere. It caught in the back of this throat. A crash from the cauldron cupboard interrupted his discomfort. He decided to take another tack.

“Stupify.”

The noises from the cauldrons stopped. Draco blinked to himself, wondering if this was a chance at redemption. If he could show he could deal efficiently with an intruder, people would have to start showing him some respect again. Maybe even allow him to go on raids. He pushed his shoulders back and walked slowly over to the cupboard, walking like Snape advancing on some potions disaster of Longbottoms.

In the middle of the fallen cauldrons was a slumped figure of a girl with dirty brown hair twisting off into rats’ tails, bare legs and a silver fur coat. He pointed his wand at her and muttered “Finite Incantatem.”

She looked up at him. She had rather large eyes and a slightly domed forehead that gave her the impression of not having had much to eat.

“What are you doing in the potions room of Lord Voldemort?”

She didn’t answer. She didn’t even flinch. Draco pushed the annoying thought that he hadn’t preformed the Finite Incantatem properly out of his head and glared down at the girl.

“Answer me. Cruc-”

He was disturbed by another cauldron being hurled in his direction, which knocked him to the floor and made him see stars. When he looked up another girl was standing over him. She was taller and her equally dirty blonde hair was done up in a messy chignon. She had a pinched face that made her nose look too long.

“I wouldn’t do that if I was you,” she said. Her breath was rancid. “We’re Greyback’s.”

“You’re not supposed to be in the Manor,” said Malfoy in a tone he hoped was closer to silky than terrified. “You’re out of bounds. If I were to report you they’d lock you in the dungeons and torture you for fun.”

“Go on report us,” said the brunette girl, from the floor. “It’s four days from the full moon and we know a way into the Manor. We happen to be very important to Greyback. Important enough for him to mount a rescue mission, I’d say. And he wouldn’t want to those that were close to him disrespected without a little lesson in manners being taught.”

The blonde werewolf helped her companion off the floor and began dusting down her coat, as if she wasn’t already filthy. As if there wasn’t a wizard still pointing a wand at them, a wizard who had nearly killed and had the dark mark on his arm at that. They just ignored him, as if it were a foregone conclusion that he would disappear and let then go on their merry thieving way. Draco had the sickening taste of it all going so very fucking wrong in his mouth again.

He pointed his wand at the blonde and muttered “Avada Kedavra.” Something vaguely green oozed out of his wand and hit the floor where it dissipated.

The two werewolves dissolved into hacking giggles, cramming their dirty fingers over their mouths in glee. Their long, yellowish curved nails were tipped with glitter.

“Oh dear,” said the brunette, “That was awful.”

“You must be Draco Malfoy,” said the blonde. “The little death eater who can’t keep his wand up, it’s alright, Fenrir’s told us all about you. Quite put out that he wasn’t allowed to keep you, in fact, although you wouldn’t have lasted a week in his pack and he knew it. We’d eat you alive, little runt like you, first full moon there was. Greyback was very disappointed not to have a guaranteed kill.”

Sweat washed down Draco’s back. He fervently hoped Voldemort never got wind of his pathetic attempt at a killing curse.

“Well you two stinking runts seem to manage well enough.”

“I told you, we’re Greyback’s, and he doesn’t like little boys so don’t think you’ve got a chance there. Now are you going to help us, or are you going to go to bed and say nothing more about it.”

He felt physically sick and not just from the rank stench of the werewolves. His mind was fiercely back pedalling, trying desperately not to attach the meaning to the girls’ statement that seemed to be the only possible one they were eluding too. Of course it wasn’t that, he told himself. Of course, they were just proud to be in the pack. Starstruck, he thought, like Ginny Weasel with Potter.

“Are you going?” said the brunette.

“What are you trying to do?” said Draco.

“Somniferum. We’re looking for Somniferum.”

“Why? It’s not like you can make somnambuilis potions, and from the snoring that comes up to the east tower, you lot sleep alright out there.”

“Actually, there’s more than a few of us who could make somnambuilis potions if we wanted to. More of us are getting wands now Greyback’s in control.”

The brunette, Draco couldn’t see properly in the dim light of the dungeons, but for some reason he thought she was younger than her companion, flashed her teeth eagerly.

“Werewolves with wands on your front lawn, does that scare you, little death eater?”

“Not really, no.”

It felt like the first honest answer he had given in years.

“Really?”

“Really. It disgusts me, perhaps; humiliates me, definitely, seeing what my home has come to, repulses me even, to see you filthy unwashed brutes around the place. But it doesn’t scare me, because I’m not sure much can anymore. I think I have developed an immunity to fear.”

“That’s not what Fenrir says. He says you nearly piss yourself every time you have to use cruciatus curse.”

Draco shrugged. That was true too, and yet so was this feeling that one too many threats had numbed him, that he would never truly be able to feel fear again. Clearly, he was still more than capable of keeping two thoughts in his head simultaneously.

“Whatever he says, he’s your master isn’t he? So you believe him.” he remembered himself and snarled, “It’s hardly like I need to try and impress you mangy dogs is it?”

It was too late, the blonde werewolf was looking at him with that kind of interest that people only have when they pity you. Gryffindors have that look all the time.

“So are you going to find us the somniferum?”

Perhaps he was just too used to following orders. Perhaps it was the bad taste in his mouth and the foul smell in his nostrils and the desire to do whatever it took to get the vile creatures out of the Manor, to make his home safe again. Perhaps, he told himself, it was best to play along until he could find a weak spot, a way to show these bitches who was boss for once and for all. A pretty devious tactic, when you thought about it, although for all his Slytherin blood, not a tactic he had ever considered using before.

He wandered into the back cupboard and selected a drawer full of small purple vials. There was a hissed conversation going on in the room behind him, animated, but somehow too low to catch. He brought the drawer into the main work area

“Have you tried it?” said the brunette.

“I’ve made somnambulis potions.”

The werewolves giggled again.

“You haven’t tried it have you?”

Draco had been warned about experimental potions before in Hogwarts of course. He had been warned of the risks of putting any of the slimy or shiny objects or curious coloured liquids in his mouth since he was a tiny child, first brought to this room by his father. Later he had been warned of wizards who would poison themselves with an excess of Felix Felicis or any other of the pleasanter potions, usually mudbloods, wizards with no true wizarding feeling, no respect for the innate power of magic.

He was good enough at potions to know somniferum wasn’t poisonous, and he was no muggleborn to be swept away by a few of the wilder sensations of the wizarding world. It wasn’t that it was exactly dignified chewing up one’s potion supplies, it wasn’t something that one mentioned in polite society, but he couldn’t really see the harm in it. Besides, if he had his new strategy to follow through, and if he let these wolves get a bit woozy and let their guard down it could only work to his advantage.

“Right,” said the brunette, “you going to make the tea?”

“What?” said Draco.

“Well you’re the one with a wand,” said the blonde werewolf, “can you do us a nice big pot full of sugary tea?”

He didn’t like to ask. He transfigured one of the smaller cauldrons into a kettle then set it to boil over a tripod. Previously, he would have rung for one of the house elves still stationed in the kitchen, but these days he did not know who they were answerable too anymore, so he sent the werewolves. He only meant to send one, but they seemed to hunt in pairs. They were less fearful of being caught sneaking around his house than he was. He poked his wand into the conjured purple flames viciously.

They returned with a teapot, tea-strainer, sugar bowl, tongs and a milk jug. It was like being at some ridiculously over-formal midnight feast, except the sight of his grandmother’s antique silver sugar tongs in the filthy claws of the blonde wolf made his stomach heave. She had ornate, looping jewellery around her neck, made out of some stuff that was too hard and too shiny and that he could tell was very cheap. You could see the dirt on their legs in the firelight. They sat beside him on the floor around the little fire, cross legged, so he could have seen their drawers if he hadn’t been careful to keep his eyes averted. Familiarity had not improved their unwashed stench. He waited, inexplicably nervous, somewhat uncomfortable, wondering what was going to happen.

Eventually the kettle boiled. The werewolves looked at Draco. He looked back at them.

“I don’t know how to do it.”

“What?” They said, their pinched faces scrunching up simultaneously.

“I don’t know how to make tea, alright. We’ve got house elves. We’ve got people who do that sort of thing for us.”

The two wolves stared at him in complete disbelief before rolling on the floor howling in mirth. Even trying not to look, he caught a glimpse of the dark wolf’s red knickers.

“So Mr Wizard here,” she said, propping herself up on one arm, “can alter size and shape and time, can float me on the ceiling or turn me into a frog, but he can’t make a cup of tea?”

“Well fine,” he stood up. He was going to kick the tripod over and storm out when the blonde caught his leg.

“It’s alright,” she said, “I’ll make the tea.”

He stomped around the cellar while they did it, wondering in and out of the sphere of light. He was starting to feel foolish now, and that feeling was a regular visitor to him, that feeling of being a frivolous distraction in his own life. He was the shadow of a doxy in a candle flame, nothing more substantial than that. Between the sense of flimsiness and the sense of rot behind all that was familiar, he was beginning to think senses were disgustingly overrated.

“Your tea’s getting cold.”

The werewolves were cross-legged around the fire again. He sat down sulkily beside them. The brunette wolf handed him a purple vial. The blonde wolf passed him his tea.

“You might want to lean back against the wall if it’s your first time.”

Draco scowled at her.

“Just a suggestion.”

He watched the wolves take the lid off their vials and swallow down the contents. He already looked so ridiculous there was no backing out now, not until he had clawed some ground back. He took the little gold top of the top of the vial and without another thought swallowed the contents down. They were viciously bitter; he found his face crumpling into a grimace without permission.

Nothing happened.

“Drink your tea,” said the brunette.

Without thinking, he leaned back against the wall, glad of the taste of sugary tea easing the sour taste from his mouth. He felt nothing else, except maybe a little twinge of regret. He looked at his arm, the cotton sleeve of his dressing gown and the pale skin on his hand. It looked a very ordinary arm to belong to a body that already had extraneous parts of potion kit coursing around in it.

It was a very nice cup of tea.

The next thing he was aware of was a peculiar rush, a building of warmth in his heels that coursed up the backs of his legs. Then he started to become very warm all over. Suddenly it all became alright. He pushed his head back, shutting his eyes and smiling with relief.

There was nothing he needed to do. There was nothing he needed to say.

He blinked his eyes open and felt very fondly towards his father’s potion room. He felt soothed by the overwhelming familiarity. He shut his eyes again. He had never felt so safe.

Everything was fine. It was all, every bit of it, alright.

~*~

When he woke up, although he hadn’t slept, not really, he had never lost his awareness of being in the room where everything was known and everything was sound, the fire had burnt out and the werewolves had gone, taking their rotten stench with them. He felt very calm. He felt very composed. There was not the problem with walking that his few experiments with fire whiskey caused him, he could move perfectly. His thoughts were clear. He carefully placed the tripod and the tea utensils back in the cupboard. He knew he could not transfigure the cauldron back tonight, but it did not matter. He picked up his wand and walked up the stairs to bed.

Wormtail had clearly not been invited on the raid either. He passed him on the landing, staring intently at the door to Draco’s bedroom. He felt nothing. When he got into bed the feeling of warmth and safety were there waiting for him.

~*~

He was lazy the next morning. He didn’t come down to breakfast; he told his mother he had a migraine. Fortunately everyone else was too distracted by the failure of another attempt to seize Potter. Something in Draco’s brain wondered why they were bothering. Potter always won. It was probably Potter’s fault things were as upside down as they were. He was less bothered by that thought than he should be; in fact it was almost comforting. It was all Potter’s fault. Something in the world was right and familiar.

Snape was the only one to pay him any mind that day. He came up to his room and made all manner of insinuating fuss. He tried to threaten him with the demands of the Dark Lord. For the first time, Draco succeeded in being suitably icy and impassive. Snape looked at him hard, a peculiar, considering look, although he didn’t feel the probing of legimency. Draco quietly reiterated that he was ill, and that that had been good enough for his Professor previously, and that he would return to his studies when he felt well enough, if there were no more pressing calls on his time.

That evening when he went back to his father’s potions room to tidy up, the drawer of vials was gone. He looked out his bedroom window that night and realised they’d lied about the moon too.

~*~

The next day he told himself now that he knew what somniferum did he never need take it again. He was never really as annoyed as he should be about being mugged by werewolves. He never told on them either, but that left him with the problem of the drawer of potions equipment that needed to be replaced. Casually he mentioned to his father that his school potions supply was getting low, and could he put in an order. He knew he had done nothing wrong, but his palms were sweating when he handed the list over. His father nodded in a preoccupied manner and signed off the order. The ingredients were owled in the next day. Draco put them away neatly in his own study room, except for the little purple vials. He told himself it was to keep them out of the hands of thieving werewolves. He took them up to his bedroom to keep safe. That would have been that. That was that.

They made him torture Rowle in the dungeons after supper on Thursday. Wormtail had stood behind him. As he finally turned away, he felt a hand surreptitiously brush against his behind. When he returned upstairs Voldemort informed him casually he would be going back to Hogwarts. The humiliation was intolerable, almost as bad as his shame at his relief.

He went to bed and annotated three pages of Potions Moste Potente. He did not think about the vials.

At breakfast Friday morning, Alecto Carrow leered over at him. “Brought you back a present Draco.” She tossed something across the table to him, small round and snitch sized. He caught it easily enough and for a moment he thought it was a snitch, because it kept moving in his closed hand. Draco lifted his arm and opened his fingers, staring at the magical eye whizzing and spinning on his palm. It stilled and stared up, electric blue. Everyone turned to him. He hadn’t meant to scream.

On Sunday evening, one of the house elves brought him up a mug of tea. It seemed a shame to waste it.

~*~

The problem was it worked. It didn’t make him fall asleep any more, not if he only took the one vial. He could still move around and pass for normal. With the Somniferum, he could do everything that was required of him. He could sit at the dining table without a muscle on his face twitching as Muggles were subjected to the cruciatus curse until they ripped at their own skin or wet themselves. He could emanate the appropriate level of blankness that passed for strength. He felt better that he wasn’t letting his parents down any more; it was hard enough for them keeping it together with the Dark Lord walking all over them without having him fainting like a girl all over the place.

With the Somniferum he felt no fear and no shame. There was no doubt about it. It made him a better person. It also made his skin itch, but you couldn’t have everything.

The only real problem was getting hold of it. He didn’t want to ask his father for another set of potion supplies, he felt he would know something was up if he asked for another twenty vials of the tincture. Snape also had a potions work room in the Manor, but that was too tightly warded for him to get into, and he did try. He thought about ordering himself, but he wasn’t sure whether or not his Father’s supplier would honour a demand from him.

He reconciled himself to surviving the last two weeks without it if he rationed it carefully. On the 11th August he ordered up a self refilling pot of tea and took the remaining five vials.

~*~

The next day, they tortured him again. Voldemort and Snape turned their wands on him while his father lectured him coldly on being a blood traitor. Even as waves of agony pulsated down his spine he caught himself looking at Voldemort and thinking - at last I’ve done something of interest to you.

~*~

He went without for the first two months in Hogwarts and felt no ill effects, except an increase in his general levels of numbness. He could live with the changes; the increased violence, and brutality. As far as he was concerned if he had to deal with everything that was safe and known becoming ugly and cruel, well so could everybody else. He only started to miss it when the Christmas holidays started approaching and he began living with an all pervading fear that sneaked up on him around teatime and did not let him go until the following dawn. It followed him around like a familiar, weird in that unlike the fear he felt last year there was no known source. It was like the ghost of an emotion. In early December he started raiding Slughorn’s cabinet, not using it, not even when the fear was really intense. He was disciplined and stockpiled it, because he knew however bad it was, it would be worse back at the Manor.


	2. Chapter 2

**  
Malfoy Manor, Wiltshire, December 1997 – January 1998   
**   


His first problem was the Christmas decorations, the usual half ton of greenery; glossy boughs of holly, pale ivy, blood red bows. He thought there might be more silver and green around than there had been in years before, but apart from that it was all as it ever had been, aggressively lush, a pureblood assertion of tradition. Previously, Draco had liked Christmas; he had thought it one of the times when he could imagine the magical world ascendant. He swallowed down a vial of somniferum and chose not to feel afraid. It hit him hard, he felt euphorically happy and kept subtly having to throw up in the Christmas tree pots.

He didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t want to think about the awfulness of sitting around the fireplace Christmas morning and smilingly unwrapping a Firebolt 2 as if he was still some precious little darling son not a failed Death Eater with illicit potion ingredients coursing through his blood. Fortunately, everyone was still so busy in their futile attempt to catch Potter there wasn’t much time for the obligation to play happy families.

Three days after Christmas he ran out. Voldemort and Wormtail led him down to the cellars where they were holding that retarded Lovegood girl from the year below him.

“What information can Loony Lovegood have?” he’d asked.

“No information,” said Voldemort.

“What’s the point of torturing her then?” said Draco, muggy headed and irritable.

“No point,” said Voldemort. “But you will.”

So he did. Afterwards, he went to do his homework in the library. He opened up his copy of Advanced Transfiguration and started on the fourteen inches that the dried up old crone McGonagall had set him. One would have thought the events of last summer would have instilled some respect in her, he thought. She’s head of Gryffindor and worms from that house were everybody’s’ dogsbodies now. It didn’t stop the pitying looks in his direction. He had had to put up with it all term and just before they’d broken up the cow had actually touched him; put her fingertips on his arm as if she were checking for sufficient quantities of flesh. He’d told her to get her blood-traitor bitch hands off him. It wasn’t like there was going to be any payback for that, she was too soft to even give detentions now, now that they really meant something. He could treat her how he liked.

He dipped his quill in his inkpot and began. The smell of burning candles was somehow comforting. Libraries were libraries after all; hidden receptacles for ancient wisdom, where learning could be guarded and passed down to the worthy from generation to generation. The acceptable side of what we are fighting for. The Malfoy library was similar enough to every other library he had been in; bigger than most, except Hogwarts’ of course. It was more elegant than Hogwarts’ library though, there weren’t the sticky fingers of a hundred mudbloods on the pages or the damaged spines of books rifled through in desperation hours before a homework deadline.

Not that that’s a problem for a model student like me, thought Draco, concluding a well worded paragraph on the principles of Elemental switching. I complete my homework as required to a satisfactory level and nobody cares about what is in my blood or my cellar.

He wished he hadn’t thought about the somniferum. His whole body flexed into desire so vivid the taste of the fluid flooded his mouth. His shoulders tensed up and his heart was racing, the bitter taste in his mouth was strong enough to make him retch. He tried to concentrate hard on the words in front of him but they now seemed imperfect and foolish. There were no more in his head. He would have to relax if he wanted to get the work done properly. His stomach knotted. He needed the easy glow of another vial to damp his mind down and bring the words back.

Draco felt the familiar sensation of being watched. He put his quill down.

“Wormtail, come here.”

He was standing between the bookshelves, making the place look untidy. His mouth was slightly open and Draco could hear his wheezy breathing speed up.

“I said Wormtail, come here.”

Draco looked at the shelves, the rows upon rows of ancient manuscripts bound up in unimpeachable leather. The smell of ancient parchment was getting too much for him. This is the smell of my birthright, of the honour I was born too, he thought bitterly. The whole room stank of musty books.

Wormtail advanced slowly, cringing slightly, cringing like he always did, the sharp yellow teeth at the front of his mouth reminding him of the werewolves.

“I’ll give you what you want.”

“I don’t know what you mean, Draco.” His watery eyes twitched convulsively. Liar, thought Draco. He can’t believe his luck. Everybody lies here. I’m a lie just being in this room.

“Yes you do. Staring at me. Looking at me. I know what you want. I’ll give it to you. Half an hour in - in my father’s potion study. Do what you like.”

Wormtail’s eyes went wide; he put his flesh hand up to his mouth, stroking his lower lip.

“I thought you’d like that. We can do it now, if you want. All I need from you are some simple potion ingredients.”

“No.” The creature was convulsed, quivering, unable to move his gaze from Draco. A log crackled on the fire.

“Don’t be stupid. It’s not like you’re going to get an offer like this again is it, Ratty? I’d do that for you, I’d suck your little broom-twig dick, if you just scurry about a bit and find me some potion supplies.”

But the older wizard was backing away, still staring at him and rubbing his mouth.

“The Dark Lord,” he spluttered, “the Dark Lord needs to know about this.”

~*~

If the Dark Lord did hear of it, he took his time to act. Draco was glassy with fear; it was the only word his mind could produce for it, the act of living with a terror that was waiting to slice one on shattered edges everywhere one turned. He felt like he would shatter, that his whole body was made of paper thin ancient glass. For a moment, he briefly wondered how his parents stood it, they were afraid too he supposed. Perhaps they had some misguided notion to protect him. Perhaps it was easier for them because they had already proved themselves.

On New Year’s Eve the Malfoys threw a ball, an evening soiree for the inner circle of Death Eaters, all smoking firewhisky toddies and green and silver swirls of angelica and artemisia trifle. Draco wandered aimlessly among the dark cloaked figures, questioning why they were bothering, it wasn’t like the Dark Lord was ever seen eating. Draco was cold and silent in the crackling firelight, the sounds of chatter bristling around him like clashing swords. He didn’t like firewhisky; it tasted sour in his mouth.

Then suddenly he was out, onto the manor lawn, casting a disillusionment charm, the frost stinging his nostrils; the stars bitter and the moon a barely visible sliver of ice. He walked across the lawn, behind the castle, to the gnarled groves of the manor’s former orchard. This too was alive with firelight, although the voices were courser and the smell in the air was of raw meat and cheap spirits. Draco huddled, curled low against the stunted trees, not listening to any sounds of dissent coming from his psyche, completely trained on the task ahead.

He nearly fell over a group of werewolves behind the trees next to him. He couldn’t see what they were doing at first, he could just hear growls and whimpers and shouts. He realised they were rutting, a female was on the ground, one was on her, the others around, cheering, presumably waiting their turn. He felt the one glass of firewhisky he had forced down himself returning, burning in his throat. He swallowed it back down. He couldn’t see why he found that so upsetting considering everything he had done.

He moved on to the centre of the celebrations, ignoring more grunts and howls from the shadows, staying on the edges of the circle of light. In the central arena, wolves male and female were fighting for hanks of fresh and bloody meat. At the head of the circle Greyback sat on enormous wooden chair that was carved with snarling lupine heads, teeth bared in bloody mouths, red against the crude gold paint. He was crowned and gnawing on a slab of flesh. On either thigh sat two girls in sliver fur coats, matchstick limbed and bright eyed.

He let the charm slip and stared at them from the shadows, waiting. He thought he’d never get their attention, he felt sick and sweaty at the thought of what he’d been reduced to, at the thought of his plan failing, at the thought of another night of all pervading fear back at the Manor, when suddenly the dark wolf looked over the head of the crowd and caught his eye. She looked adoringly up at Greyback and whispered something into his ear. He smiled adoringly and run his hand up her thigh and under her skirt pawing at her crotch. Then he let her slide down off his lap. She took the hand of her companion and led her out into the undergrowth.

They walked out into the forest holding hands and cackling together. Draco knew without being told that he was meant to follow. They got to the edge of the crooked trees and the crouched figures of the wolves guarding the camp. He hadn’t noticed them on the way in. He must be getting very good at disillusionment charms. When they got to the shadow of the manor walls, the werewolves finally stopped and spoke to him.

“So, you were looking for us?” the blonde wolf sounded delighted.

“I wanted to know if you had any more somniferum?” He hoped his voice sounded casual.

The brunette reached into her coat and drew out a handful of purple vials. “Picked some up last raid. Nasty business that; stupid wizard that wouldn’t co-operate. We’ve still got him. Greyback’s going to turn his wife next full moon and we want him to see that before we get rid of him.”

Draco reached out for the vials. The wolf laughed and pulled her hand back.

“Oh no little death eater, you’ve got to pay for these.”

“I haven’t got any money, and besides – you owe me.”

The wolves both laughed.

“We only owe you if you can make us repay you. As it is, you can’t.” She smiled at him. “Don’t worry Draco, we can help you get the money, we can help you get whatever you need. You’re still a wizard aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Then it should be very easy to do this. You might even find it fun. More fun than trying to suck off that disgusting rat-man anyway.”

~*~

If it hadn’t been for the vial of somniferum he had swallowed Draco would have been cold. The air was thick with freezing fog, making the streetlights loom a virulent yellow. Why did the Muggles choose that awful colour? Buses lumbered through the gloom like mechanical elephants. Draco had very little sense of the uncanny; he had been raised to be as familiar with the banal details of the eerie as Muggles were with the mundane. He had none of the ancient instincts that feared shadows in dark places; he knew every shadow by name. Being born in the wizarding world was being born secure in the knowledge that everything had its explanation. Wizards knew what was out there. They did not fear the unknown.

So here he was in the goods arches of York Way, moving in his own self-sustaining sphere of all pervading fear, without even the terminology to express his situation. If he hadn’t been drugged he would have been freezing. He loomed himself, a black figure in the backlit glow emerging from the dirty mist, appearing to the Muggles without that warning space they needed to fully process what was coming into view. In any other situation it would have been an advantage; here he was not so sure.

This isn’t going to work, he thought as the tenth stranger looked at him, snorted at him and moved on. This isn’t going to work, he thought, turning his pale pointed face to the next stranger, tilting his head back haughtily and brushing his hand over his hip.

This muggle didn’t keep walking. Draco continued to stare back. Finally he sneered:

“You want business?”

The muggle stopped. He was slightly stooped and very balding. For a moment Draco was reminded of Wormtail.

There was silence. The fog seemed to deaden the sounds of the city, or maybe the city never permeated here between the gasworks and the derelict goods yard on the wrong side of York Way. This is a fucking joke Draco thought, and then hesitantly, almost shyly, the muggle spoke into his face:

“How much?”

“Fifty.”

“Going rate’s thirty.”

“I’m better quality than the going rate,”

“I’m not paying more than thirty.”

Draco would have argued, but he realised there was no point. It would all come good in the end, after all.

“Alright.”

He dropped his head and led the muggle further into the darkness, away from the arches, down into the empty land that had once been filled by the railway. The buttressed wall of an empty warehouse was just visible in the muggy dark, the rest of the building fading off into the gloom. Draco pushed the muggle against the filthy brickwork. He sighed and licked his lips.

“Money first,” said Draco. The muggle was looking at him excitedly, almost tenderly. The look disgusted him. It was the look Auntie Bella sometimes got on her face before she was about to really torture someone.

The muggle reached down into his pockets, took out his wallet and extracted the three notes he thought Draco was worth. Draco smiled and closed his left hand on them.

“Empty your wallet.”

The man looked like he was about to laugh at this skinny little boy threatening him down a dark alley. Draco kept smiling and closed his right hand on the wand behind his back.

“Empty your wallet, _Imperio!_ ”

There was a split second of confusion on the muggle’s face at having a small white stick pointed at him and then it slid away to be replaced by blankness. The muggle smiled and emptied all the cash from his wallet into Draco’s waiting hand.

The wolves were right, this did feel better than smarming up to Wormtail. He stood there with his wand in his hand, making the Muggle hand the money over, making him give his power over to Draco. He felt dizzy. There were enough notes to buy Draco ten times over. He didn’t know the conversion rate, but he supposed it was a fair amount of money. It was New Year’s Eve after all, perhaps he was going somewhere. How sorry I am, Mr Muggle, to have to change your plans.

When all the money had been handed over he pointed his wand at the Muggle again.

“Turn around.”

The man turned to face the warehouse wall. Draco aimed a spell at the back of his head.

“ _Obliviate!_ ”

Then he disappeared.

~*~

He was on a balcony, high up in the mist, in the swirl of streetlights laughing, laughing so hard his lungs felt like they were going to burst. He had never felt so unbelievably lifted, so perfect as he did on this cream-washed walkway, icy and full of debris, built in blocks like a ziggurat. He was in a temple; the Muggles were squirming around him, living cheek by jowl in their little holes, hardly better than werewolves. He looked out at the shrouded city around him and felt loved like he never had been before.

“So what’s Vole –dee - mort live off then?” said the dark haired wolf, passing the plastic bottle back to her friend. Draco took a moment from his revelation of wonder to fret as to when the bottle was coming back to him. “If he doesn’t eat?”

“Potions.” Said Draco. “Liquid diet.”

“Trying to keep his figure.”

Draco snorted acrid smoke out his nose. His nose was numb. It might fall off his face. He tried to take another lungful without dissolving into giggles.

“Well you can’t imagine the Dark Lord on the toilet, can you?”

He was rolling in the chicken and chips cartons and the crushed up cans. He was laughing in an air that was so pure that every failing and flaw rose out of him, out of his skin, the flesh parted and the dirt rose up into lukewarm glow of the landing strip lights, the pathetic tiny coloured lights in the muggle windows, into a light so bright and a night so full of noise he wondered how he had ever thought himself happy before.

“Come on,” said the blonde wolf, “we need to get back to Greyback.”

The world descended, his feet felt cold.

“Just one more smoke,” he said, “Just one more.”

But the wolves were suddenly serious.

“We need to get back, we promised him we’d be back by midnight, back with the party.”

She laughed but the world had stopped being funny. Draco whined again.

“Fine,” said the blonde wolf, “don’t apperate us back. We’ll repay the favour and leave you here.”

He grumbled but they dragged him into the stairwell and he got them back to the manor. They parted company on the frosty lawn and Draco swallowed another vial walking out into the darkness, unable to deal with his lost happiness. He just about remembered to transfigure his clothes back before heading back into the manor, down into the kitchens to bother the house elves into making him a cup of tea.

~*~

The wolves tried to make him go out again after that, but he had homework to do and the thought somehow made him feel dirty and unpleasant. He only had another week left before he could escape to the safety of Hogwarts, and he had more than enough of the little purple vials to see him through.

As Draco was watching the house elves take down the Christmas decorations on January 6th, Snape suddenly appeared beside him:

“The Dark Lord requires your presence,”

The Dark Lord had moved in to what had previously been the Manor’s slightly under-utilised ballroom, and was well on the way to turning it into his own private throne room. He had gathered together various artefacts from the Manor that he felt appropriate to his person; an imposing silver chair that had sat unclaimed in the muniments room for as long as Draco had been alive now stood in the centre of the room hung with green and silver tapestry. The snake crested dragon-hunting armour of Verrucosus Malfoy stood to one side, Nagini was slithering and coiling around the spiked steel boots. Draco had heard the rumours that he was a half-blood and thought the whole deal was really showing up his status. He bit his lip. What a tin-pot fraud my family has sold itself to.

Voldemort did not seem to have the nerve to actually sit on his own throne but stood in the centre of the room with his wand arm extended, to Draco’s mind a little like a charming host waiting to show a guest around a new stately pile. Wormtail was standing beside the chair rubbing his fingers over his face. He was looking at the Dark Lord with a squirming air of bristling excitement as if he was expecting some kind of treat. He practices sitting on that chair in front of Wormtail, thought Draco.

“Wormtail tells me some very interesting things about you Draco. Would you like to tell me what they are?”

Draco looked at him. Curiously, he felt no fear but he didn’t feel much of anything else either. He was beginning to find this numbness wearing.

“No?” said the Dark Lord. “There’s not really much point in being stubborn Draco. You know I could make you.”

He smiled. Draco’s body didn’t even brace for the curse. He just waited for it blankly and it never came.

“I could make you couldn’t I Draco?”

“Yes my Lord.”

“But as it happens, this time I do not need to exert myself. I can recount the tale. I know we had to advise you last time you were home for the holidays that there are certain perversions that exist among Muggles that have no place in the wizarding world. We explained at some length that lacking any control over their world, Muggles attempt to control their perception of it by the few pitiful plants they have that are capable of such things. This does not happen in the Wizarding world.”

Draco nodded.

“Wormtail tells me you are still persisting in your attempts to prove you are little more than a common Muggle. What was it he said to me? Oh yes, that you offered him ‘half an hour in - in my father’s potion room. Do what you like,’ in exchange for some meagre herbs. Do those words sound familiar to you Draco? Do you think your pureblood throat could have uttered them?”

Draco continued to look ahead. He felt shame of course, the fact his head of house now knew he’d made that pathetic attempt at a trade off made his cheeks burn. Wormtail probably had fewer resources than he did when it came to unauthorised acquisitions. At least Draco wasn’t pretending to be dead.

He didn’t feel fear. Fear was what you felt when you still had a chance to escape.

“Do you think maybe a stint in Azkaban would educate you Draco? If you will act like a filthy mudblood poisoning yourself with whatever magical plants you can get hold of, perhaps you would also like to emulate the stinking creatures by joining them in prison? They too misuse magic by stealing it from its rightful masters. Perhaps it would be good for even the mighty Malfoys to learn they are not above the law. I daresay, a few more true wizards might come over to our side if we were seen to be a little more even handed.” He smiled beneficently at Draco.

Voldemort turned to Snape who had walked in behind them:

“You may leave us, Severus.”

“Shall I make contact with the Ministry, my Lord?”

“There are no further orders at present,” he turned his smile on Snape, who bowed and headed for the door.

“You too Wormtail,”

“But Master...,”

“Don’t worry Wormtail, your noble contribution has not gone unnoticed.” His flesh hand was up again, worrying at his mouth as he had done in the library.

“Master, may I?”

“Wormtail, I would leave now before I request Severus to blast you out.”

When they had left, Voldemort turned his attention to Draco. He felt curiously honoured. There was a dull thud outside the room and he guessed Snape had decided to blast Wormtail anyway. The Dark Lord took in his dumb face and the red streaks on the backs of his hand where he had been scratching his itchy skin, flicking lazily through his thoughts. Draco let them seep out of his head without resistance.

“Oh Draco,” said Voldemort softly, after ten minutes of this intense scrutiny. “There are some terrible things in your head. You’re not fit to be a wizard you know.”

Draco nodded. Voldemort continued to look at him sadly.

“I’m amazed they never noticed it at Hogwarts; all this damage, all these deficits. Teaching a person like you magic was bound to overload a defective system. You know that don’t you? You know that you were only taught magic because of the politics of that dangerous fool Dumbledore, his misguided beliefs in equality.”

Draco did not respond. He heard the words but they had no impact on him, they swirled around him.

“I know why you are doing what you do, and why you can’t stop. It helps you doesn’t it? I can see quite clearly there’s something missing in your head and these potions are the only thing that covers that. Instead of accepting you, protecting you, your parents persisted, pushed you forward into tasks you were bound to fail. There are some quite interesting things in your mind about your mother and father, although you may not be aware of them. I confess I was quite shocked that a young man so unwilling to cast a cruciatus curse should have such vicious, spiteful thoughts. You hate your parents.”

Voldemort had started to pace the room, swishing back and forth, looking in his dark robes almost like a Hogwarts professor. Draco tried to decide if he believed his words, and found he did not care.

“Everybody knows now. I’m afraid discretion was never one of Pettigrew’s virtues. Nobody will ever respect a wizard who drinks from his own potion store.”

The only thing Draco felt was sleepy, very sleepy. He wondered blankly if there was some unknown enchantment in the room. He listened to Voldemort droning on, his voice gentle, almost compassionate, his words making no sense at all.

“You failed me, and you know I should kill you for that. You understood when you took my mark that my demands are absolute. You deserve to be dead. Why do you think I haven’t killed you?”

Draco thought for a moment. Even in the heavy, soporific air the only possible answer came easily enough.

“Because you have a use for me.”

“Yes Draco. That is the correct answer. You are only alive because I have a use for you. That is only possible hope for the weak, that they may become an instrument of one greater than them and so be shielded from the degradation of their position. And you are so very degraded aren’t you?”

Draco looked at him.

“I would say yes here, Draco. I do have the power to hurt you, after all.”

“Yes, my Lord” said Draco.

“Good,” said Voldemort. “Now tell me, could you imagine a world in which that idiot child Potter was victorious?”

“Yes,” said Draco, sourly rebellious. The Dark Lord’s snake-like eyes seemed to flicker for a moment. Draco faced death with equanimity.

“Yes, yes of course you could. The words of that senile old man even got to you, didn’t they, in your darkest hours, up there in the room of hidden things. I’ve seen every false thought Draco; every pathetic tear. You were softening, slipping into his twisted ideals that we should shutter away our power as if it were something shameful. That thinking is very appealing to those who have no strength of their own.”

He paused, his hideous red eyes staring right at Draco. Draco thought he needed another purple vial. He wondered if he would get the chance. Voldemort was laughing again.

“But you see - I too fear a world in which the Mudbloods hero is victorious. Even I have this fear. The brat is lucky and my servants are frail and fail me. A world in which we were defeated, a world ruled by that vindictive child would be unthinkable. His revenge would be terrible. He would have commoners and Muggles rule us all. That world cannot be allowed to come into being. If we fail, we must put magic out of the hands of blood-traitors, thieves and perverted half-breeds forever.”

He stopped his pacing and came to stand inches away from Draco’s face. He had never been this close to the Dark Lord before. It wasn’t pleasant. He felt a strong sense of distaste at the thought those skeletal hands might touch him.

“I know how to do this. I can ensure that even if they win they will have no victory, but to accomplish this I need a willing servant. I can use your degradation Draco, your misery, that disgust you see when you face yourself each morning. It is not for nothing. We can use that to defeat Potter forever, even were we to fail. Get on your knees Draco.”

Draco blinked, a sense of shock interrupting his abstraction.

“You want to see Potter defeated. You know only I can deliver that to you. You have no power in yourself. Get to your knees!”

Draco knelt. He can’t be about to do what I think he’s going to do, thought Draco in panic, he doesn’t have the mechanism. He thought of the werewolves and the thought was cheering, hey you dogs, guess who I sucked off this afternoon -, being Voldemort’s bitch had to beat being Greyback’s.

When the pressure came it was a wand-tip, not flesh he felt against his face.

“Give me your weakness, Draco!”

The wand jabbed into his forehead. I wonder whose wand you've stolen this time, he thought.

“ _Carnifex Mundi!_ ”

The room sunk to darkness and he felt as if his clothes had been stripped from him and his bare flesh flayed. The only light was the scorching beam coming from the wand of Lord Voldemort, a sickly pinkish glow that froze him within his own failure, burnt it into his naked hide. He was a weak, crawling creature who would do anything and say anything just to be spared a moments pain, he knew that, he felt the filth in his scoured flesh. The air around him was thick with the sweet, powdery scent of decay. In disgust he saw his skin how it truly was, rotten and tainted. He did not deserve life. He did not even deserve pain. He was a worthless, hopeless being that sullied the Earth with his continued existence. Voldemort increased the strength of the beam. The world disappeared. Draco was pinioned in the void and he could not escape.

Eventually the pink glow faded and slowly Draco was released. He fell on the floor at his master’s feet, shaking, breathing heavily. The Dark Lord receded, moving away contemptuously from the writhing creature on the floor. Draco felt the cool air from his swishing robes on his face. He tried hard to get his breathing under control and to force his limbs still. It took longer than he would have liked, but eventually he stood up. When he heard the sound of feet on the floor, Voldemort finally turned around.

“You are seventeen now Draco, I don’t think you need to be spending all your weekends at Hogwarts. You may use the floo in the Carrows office to return to the Manor when summoned. Do you understand me?”

“Yes my Lord.”

“You are dismissed.”

He walked towards the door, sweating slightly, feeling an overwhelming relief to be allowed back to his bedroom, to order another cup of tea and to escape. He had his hand on the door handle, already breaking his rationing plans because nothing more than six vials would get him anywhere where he could be safe from this.

“Oh and Draco,”

His stomach lurched. He had been caught. He turned his head back to Voldemort who was now aiming his wand at him:

“ _Obliviate!_ ”

He bowed to Voldemort and escaped, allowing himself to rest against the closed door to catch his breath which had gone into gasps again. He felt very, very sick and for a moment he had to squat down to keep himself from fainting. It was only when he got back into his bedroom with the taste of sweet tea in his mouth and the first warming waves of Somniferum kicking in that he was struck by what a pathetic windbag Voldemort was. He wondered that the other Death Eaters hadn’t noticed it. Perhaps they were just better at Occlumency than him. He savoured this thought for a few moments, trying to decide in the increasing bliss whether this thought was concerning or not. We have all been fooled by a half-mad half-muggle charlatan. He laughed out loud. We’re totally screwed and it’s all our own fault.

When his giggles subsided the second realisation dawned on him. If one could remember someone saying Obliviate that someone hasn’t been entirely successful in their magic.


	3. Chapter 3

**  
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry June-August 1998   
**

Things had been alright that summer despite the dreadful events of early May. It had stilled to lazy, the dragonflies hovered low, and even in Scotland the weather had been hot without a gasp of wind. Harry had stayed for a while in Hogwarts, helping the remaining members of the Order put the castle back to rights. It was all fairly simple, menial stuff. Housekeeping spells with a bit of reparo, and some fancy paint wandwork that Flitwick had shown him. It was, in a way, the perfect distraction after a year spent under the threat of death. The air was still and the lilacs and the venomous tentacula both bloomed twice over. Harry felt like seven years of wounds were slowly and steadily beginning to heal over.

Hermione had spoken to him in the week after the battle. She had asked if he needed them to stay with him before he’d realised he wanted to stay at Hogwarts. He looked at her, not knowing what to say, when she added:

“Because I was thinking of going to Australia to find my parents.”

She ran her fingers though the grass between them.

“What about Ro -,”

“I was thinking about taking him too.”

Harry looked at her dazzled. He wondered if she had been secretly practicing legilimency. Then again, Hermione had always been good at feelings. His eyes smarted. He was getting extremely annoyed with his eyes’ tendency to prickle at the bursting of a puffapod.

“You’ll never persuade his Mum to let him on an aeroplane.”

They sort of laughed.

“We’ll be back before you know it,” she said. “And then Harry, you had better be ready to stop your moping. Auror training starts first of September and you’ll really need to get some robes that haven’t spent the last seven months in a tent.”

He smiled. He really loved Hermione. He supposed that meant he loved Ron too although that just sounded wrong.

“Ron,” he told the balmy evening air, “I think you’re alright.” He grinned.

He had been using his new, rather therapeutic in that just tricky enough way, paint spell on some deep scratches in the whitewash, trying to ignore the fact they had been caused by Bellatrix nearly blasting Ginny into smithereens, when Slughorn had come waddling down the corridor in his unfeasibly floral dressing gown and green silk pyjamas huffing and puffing about the moving staircase between Charms and transfiguration getting stuck, and with it the access to his chambers. Harry didn’t think too much about it as Hogwarts was always doing strange things like that. It came back that afternoon, but it started to look slightly wispy and people began not to trust it.

Harry had taken to reading the Prophet most afternoons with his feet up and a plate of scones beside him. He hadn’t really had a chance to savour the absurdities of wizard culture before, but now he took it all in from Madam Malkin’s Victory Robes, modelled on Auror’s robes and perfect for those Goodbye You-Know-Who parties, to the Drusilla Doxy cartoons. He contemplated the possibility of actually following a Quidditch team and maybe even buying a season ticket. He read coverage of the annual Nether Scratchlington Niffler race, won this year by Daniel and Maureen Shambles; - their house stayed upright for a full three hours and forty six minutes after twenty gold galleons had been carefully hidden within. A rather unsettling House Elf of the Year competition promised heats in housekeeping, cooking skills and self-punishment. He wondered why he and Ron hadn’t noticed the hilariously cheesy ads in hidden corners for owl-order services offering performance enhancing potions and dropping hints about the possibilities of Polyjuice and more before catching the tiny writing beneath it. “This advertisement has been charmed to appear to wizards of seventeen years old and over. All non-ministry approved potions are swallowed at the owners own risk.” Somehow, it made them even funnier.

On his birthday, the lighting in the Slytherin dungeons failed. Not that there were any Slytherins there at that point in time, except poor old Slughorn. Everyone put it down to some sort of prank against that house for their shaky loyalty. Harry had never spent a summer in Hogwarts and he was pleased to see the castle kept up all its usual tricks even out of term time. He was glad it still had a sense of mischief. It was a sign of resilience.

The freedom was breathtaking. He had in effect been shunted from hide out to hide out since he was a year old, forced to stay wherever other wizards judged was safe enough for him to be. The thought was staggering; he could now live in any city or town in the world without his location being of the slightest concern to anyone. He could pluck the owl carrying Hermione’s birthday card right out of the air in full view of everyone and did so with gusto. Madam Pomfrey gave him a vial of murtlap essence for the scratches.

He read the postcard out loud and at the top of his voice under the beech tree by the lake, while soaking his clawed and bitten fingers. He had been used to being a student, being a The Chosen One, being Dumbledore’s man. And now, at the end of all that, he was himself.

The summer wore on and the nights started to creep in. For the first time, Harry noticed rabbits coming to graze on the Hogwarts lawn in the twilight. He didn’t really register it.

He wasn’t really registering much back then. He knew he was sort of hiding up in Hogwarts, knew he was languishing in an out of the way castle between cause and effect, knowing he’d go home one day, and deal with it, whatever shape the it might form, but for now he was quite happy, stuck in a lilac scented daze, oblivious. He felt like he was viewing the world through a pair of Luna’s spectrespecs.

There had never been time to think about being a wizard as an identity before. He decided he liked it. If something was ticking in the back of his brain he ignored it, like he ignored the feeling he would have to go back one day. He felt a strong objection to going back to Grimauld Place and a strong sense of cheer that this objection made him like his godfather before him, both near enough homeless at seventeen. Harry was fairly sure he could sort that out easily enough with a trip to Gringotts and a bit of looking. He could stay in the Leaky Cauldron for a while. Six years in dormitories and all those months in that tent had used up several lifetimes of desire for communal living. Right now he just wanted a door to shut and a place to call his own.

The next thing that happened was a breach of security at the Ministry. Three muggle maintenance men in bright orange jumpsuits had walked right into the atrium explaining, goggle eyed something about repairing air shafts on the central line. They were duly obliviated and sent on their way, but the news was in the Prophet for days. It was put down to former Death Eaters weakening the wards under He Who Must Not Be Named.

He ignored the strange feeling that something was up, like he ignored the fact he was going to have to deal with the fact Fred had gone at some point. Remus too. He thought he might, at some undecided point in the future miss Snape, although here, under the high ceiling and enchanted sky, it seemed impossible that he had gone. He ignored the fact his brain was already painting the Burrow in the role of Childhood Home and that he would have to face Ginny again at some point.

All that could be held at bay until term started and he had to go back to London. All that could be warded off by a glance across the lawn to the lake, blue under the dreamy sky and the deep lush green of the mountains. The giant squid spread out its tentacles in the shallows, basking in the sunlight, and Harry looked out and held everything else far away.

Even the enchanted ceiling had picked up on the lazy, dreamy, unreality of the times. It had taken to reflecting back the sky through a soft mist; a filmy veil, which Harry assumed was a heat haze.

  
**Ottery-Saint-Catchpole and Diagon Alley, September 1998**   


On the 31st August, Harry returned to the Burrow. He stayed there for a muted night, not quite sure where he fitted into the world anymore. Ron was back from Australia and almost clinging to Harry but not really sure of what to say. It meant he didn’t get to see as much of Ginny as he thought he’d like to. He was surprised that left him disappointed, but with a tiny dash of relief. There was something about Ginny that just felt too real, too solid to be dealt with right now. Arthur had worked late because the internal floo network at the Ministry was down. He said it had been put in a hundred and twenty years ago, when the ministry only employed thirty five wizards and a hag.

The next day they went to Kings Cross and waved Ginny off. He watched the huge red engine steam away with its cargo of expectant children. He watched it steam into the distance and felt that was what they had been fighting for. That, and that he felt awfully old to have a girlfriend still in school. The sky outside the station was clear and sharp; the mistiness had gone. Autumn was here and he was ready to begin again. When the last carriage had rounded out of view, Arthur turned to Ron and Harry.

“Well, it’s a pity you are going to be late on your first day, but there’s no helping it.”

“What?,” said Ron.

“Eleven fifteen, Kingsley Shacklebolt’s office. He’s promised to give you a tour before you register this afternoon.”

“But I don’t even know what Kingsley’s office looks like.”

“Come on.”

They walked into a small cubicle just off the platform side marked “Waiting Room and Public Floo.” Mr Weasley inserted seven sickles into a silver jar placed on the mantel of an empty stone fireplace. The jar coughed out some green powder, mostly into his hand. He smiled cheerily at Harry and Ron before throwing the powder into the grate and announcing: “Mr Weasley’s Office!” Harry wondered just how much he knew about him and Ginny as he disappeared into the emerald flames. He ignored the thought and took out his own seven sickles.

Even in their first week of training he and Ron were inundated with lists of books to read and spells to master. Both agreed they wished Hermione were joining them, although as it happened she was spending a lot of time in the Ministry too, so at least they could have lunch together. She was in her first year of training to be a special advisor to the Wizagmot on Magical Creatures, which seemed to involve even more books than Dark Wizard catching.

“Still it’s a pain in the arse we’ve got to do all our own homework now,” said Ron. Practical classes had started on the afternoon of their second day and today was their first practice session in Stealth and Tracking.

“Are you sure?” said Harry, trying to disguise the fact he’d turned his left foot into the clawed bottom of a cloak stand. Disillusionment charms were proving trickier than they looked.

“What do you mean?” said Ron, “Recanto!”

Harry looked at his newly returned foot. There were strange bulges bubbling at the end of his trainer.

“Well you know, not mixing business and pleasure and all that.”

“What?” said Ron as Harry’s toenails burst out of the end of his shoe and continued a steady progress across the floor.

“It’s in that God-awful book you got me for my birthday last year, Fifty Shifters for Witches Knickers or whatever.”

Harry’s toenails had reached the skirting board and were now starting to grow up the wall. He watched them in fascinated amusement.

“Yeah well, I was a lot younger a year ago. RECANTO!”

Harry stifled a gasp as he felt his toenails rip off. He hopped on one foot trying to rub his stinging toe tips.

“That and you’d be wearing your kneecaps on the backs of your legs if Hermione caught you with it.”

“Sorry mate.” He paused. “What’s Hermione got to do with it anyway?”

Harry sat down on one of the Ministry monogrammed wooden chairs and started working his trainer off.

“Just how thick do you think I am?”

“I thought you would want your foot back.”

Harry massaged his sweaty foot hoping Ron didn’t notice the smell too much. He didn’t want Mrs Weasley to fuss and didn’t quite know what to do with his laundry. That morning he had told himself that three days and a fumigation charm wasn’t that bad a vintage for a sock. They’d been smellier last year by miles.

“I know you are going out with Hermione. In fact, you probably have been for the last year or so. I was just hoping you’d get around to telling me before like, the wedding.”

“Oh mate,” said Ron, collapsing on the chair across the desk from him. “We were going to tell you, it’s just ‘Mione didn’t think you were up to any big shocks yet.”

“Ron, that’s the smallest shock I’ve had since I was bitten by a flobberworm.”

“Oh,” said Ron, going a bit pink, “You’re alright with it though, aren’t you?”

“Yeah of course I’m alright with it.” He paused. “Like I said, Hermione’s like my sister. In fact she virtually is my sister seeing neither of us has got any other siblings.” He grinned, feeling deliciously malicious. There was a whole world of payback that had been a very long time in coming. “Which means,” said Harry narrowing his eyes and letting his voice go cold, “If you put a toe out of line while you are with her, I won’t need a wand. Just remember who’s been living in my head for the last sixteen years. And that I can run faster than you.” He paused. Ron had gone suitably pale. “Not that running will be too easy anyway with having your kneecaps on the wrong way.”

~*~

Harry stayed at the Burrow for a week. After a week, he decided to make good on his claims for independence and moved into the Leaky Cauldron. He discovered Neville was working there to save up money for an advanced Herbology field trip to Brazil. They used to have that day’s unsold steak and kidney pies for supper together. Neville’s room was full of waving, wobbling greenery and scattered Honeydukes’ sweet wrappers. There was a picture of his Nan from the Daily Prophet pinned to the wall. She was beaming out from under the headline “I Never Knew He Had It In Him” and holding up Neville’s Order of Merlin first class.

On the ninth of September the connection to Diagon Alley broke. For three hours there was no communication between the wizarding streets and Muggle London. The Leaky Cauldron was packed with various people stuck between one world and the other. There was nearly a riot. Neville smashed open the pub’s emergency barrel of Draft of Peace, ‘Do not open except in times of Chaos, Confundity or Collective Effervescence’ and nearly bankrupted the bar plying everyone with gillywaters spiked with it.  
The Ministry agreed an emergency portal would be installed behind Pertwistles Potions and Pick me ups, leading onto Oxford Street near St Mungos. Arthur Weasley was sent down to identify an easily ignorable Muggle object. This mollified the Daily Prophet a little. They also agreed to reimburse Tom for the gillywater.

On the Seventeenth of September three of the underground vaults at Gringotts collapsed, killing one dragon and four goblins. Following reports on this in the Daily Prophet, it also came to light that the minor technical problems at Hogwarts were ongoing.

On the Twenty Fourth of September the presses at the Daily Prophet ground to a halt.

~*~

Since it was their first taste of real work, even if the work was officially called training, Harry, Ron and Hermione considered themselves exhausted enough to be deserving of a few drinks each Friday and after only three weeks it had started taking on the air of a ritual. They’d meet at the One-eyed Bullfrog, which was where half the ministry types went on a Friday and worked their way back to the Leaky Cauldron stopping for a Sglodrings Sloppiest chips and gravy along the way. That Friday, however was different.

“Can we go somewhere Muggle?”

“Eh?” said Ron.

Harry looked over at the crowd of wizards and witches making their way to the fireplaces, stopping to shoot furtive looks in their direction. Ron shrugged; Harry supposed he had been putting up with it since he was eleven.

“I’d just like to get out of the way for a bit.”

People who stared at Harry were usually wearing one of two looks. Today, after a whole five months of the look of amazed adulation, the other look was back.

“What?” said Ron, finally getting it? “What – they think this is something to do with you? _Again?_ So you should have let Voldemort win to save them a ten minute delay on the Floo network.”

“It was more than a fault in the Floo,” said Hermione. “Not that I think it’s got anything to do with Harry,” she added to a scowling Ron, “But something, well something mysterious happened in the Department of Mysteries this afternoon. Of course, no one knows what, but everyone seems to think it was bad.”

Harry looked at the chess-board floor of the atrium. He didn’t want to think about the last time Voldemort outsmarted him. Ron was still ranting.

“Ungrateful bastards the lot of them. What do they think you caused these fuck ups on purpose?”

“It’s okay,” said Hermione. “We’ll do Muggle.”

  
 **  
Frith Street, Soho, London, 25th Sept 1998   
**

“What on earth,” said Ron “is this?”

“Lager,” said Hermione, clutching her own beaker.

“It’s like drinking scourgifying soda.” He took another sip. “Eurgh. Too cold and too bubbly.”

Things had got easier after the first pint in a plastic glass on the balding lawn of Soho square. The evening started in a bustle of teenagers, late picnickers and people who had shuffled off towards the bushes to smoke pungent smelling herbs. A girl with a mohican was giving out flyers for a club called Penetration. Harry looked around and thought that if the wizarding world could fight off Voldemort it could manage a few post-war magical hiccoughs. A little local difficulty, he had thought, bracing himself for an assault on the bar.

The dark washed in around seven o’clock; they left the square and headed into Soho proper. The night was like treacle, thick with people moving, still warm and bright from the many heat lamps burning down into the canopies that extended out to the street. Maybe it was just the drink kicking in. They’d not wasted much time and by now were distinctly cheerful.

“That’s better,” said Ron, taking a hefty swig from the frothing pink drink Harry had put in front of him. He took the umbrella out of his glass and slipped it into Hermione’s hair. She did not object. He looked around. “Why’s the floor shaking?”

They were stood in the corner of a crowded bar clutching their drinks to themselves. The music was so loud the bass reverberated up through the wooden floor.

“Muggle music, Ron,” said Hermione.

“It’s kind of weird,” said Ron, “Weird like... bumpy.”

He made some ridiculous up and down movement to the beat as if he was an overtaxed bicycle pump. Harry felt Hermione’s drink hit his shirt as she snorted, just managing to swallow his own in time. Ron seemed to have taken their hilarity as a signal of success. He put his drink down on the narrow shelf that run the length of the room and began some deeply disturbing gyrations with his hips while holding his hands out in front of him as if he were sneaking up on some unseen beast. Hermione was hooting. Harry took a long swig of his drink and advanced on Ron. They did some chest-baring head-wiggling movement together modelled on a Quidditch move between opposing chasers. Harry turned to Hermione. She was looking very serious. She put her drink down and glared at them both before strutting between them, wiggling her arms as if she were imitating a Hippogriff.

They kept it up to the end of the song, Harry mixing Quidditch moves with parodies of dancers he’d seen on muggle TV, Ron bouncing and jumping to the heavy beat, Hermione seemingly working the odd magical creature into some shapes from a long forgotten ballet class. They were breathless with exertion and laughter and when they looked up the whole of the rest of the bar was staring at them.

“Fresh air,” muttered Hermione, grabbing her pint.

“It was only a bit of dancing,” said Ron. “I thought my Dad said Muggles had a really good sense of humour.”

“Some Muggles,” said Harry, thinking gleefully of what Uncle Vernon would have thought of that little performance. The cool air felt good against his sweaty skin. The night was full of cigarette smoke and perfume. He was rather glad they’d gone Muggle.

One head of white blonde hair was standing in the crowd on the corner of Old Compton Street. He started to move with the people westwards into the heart of Soho.

“Excuse me,” he said, handing his drink to Hermione. She looked confused but he couldn’t explain. He hoped he wasn’t developing some sort of trauma complex that lead him to start jumping at shadows. It wasn’t like there was a shortage of blonde heads here.

The music from the clubs was pumping harder at the top end of the street, women’s voices, moaning and purring over deep throbbing beats. A few shut up shops still kept their windows bright, windows full of mannequins in plastic underwear and rubber dresses. From a doorway labelled Gemini Blue a bored looking woman put down her nail-file to beckon him.

Inside the Village strobe lighting fell on a hundred sweaty male bodies thrusting and grinding with earnestness he and Ron could never imitate. _Bring it on now, Bring it, Bring it on now,_ the voices crooned.

A white blonde head streaked into the alley at the blind head of the street. Harry swallowed hard and followed him.

~*~

Malfoy was leaning against the alley wall, eyes closed, arms wrapped round himself as if he was catching his breath. To his left, green neon lighting around an archway advertised Double Acts and Girls!Girls!Girls! The green light seeped into his hair.

“Your place or mine?” drawled Malfoy.

He was dressed like a muggle in t-shirt and dark trousers, scuffed up and a bit ripped. He looked over at Harry and sneered. Harry sucked in his breath.

“What the hell, Malfoy? What are you doing?” Harry made some vaguely incoherent noises. Here was Malfoy, roughed up, smelling of sweat and alcohol, propositioning him in an alley. The months since the war had not been kind, evidently. “Does your mother know your here?”

Malfoy just rolled his eyes. He reached into the pocket of his trousers; they were vinyl, noticed Harry, or knowing Malfoy, dragonhide. The waistband was coming away from the rest of them, flashing a little of the white skin beneath Malfoy’s stomach. He put his hands to his face and a light flared. Harry saw a flash of bruises; a cut below his left eye, still fresh, still a little bloody. The light died.

He had lit a cigarette and was leaning back, smoking, languidly watching Harry look as if he had all night. He can’t be wearing any underpants, thought Harry and perspiration washed down his back.

“No,” said Malfoy, and his voice suddenly became very quiet; “Mother doesn’t know I’m here.”

There was a yellow sign behind him on which crude black letters were advertising MODEL up an otherwise unmarked and empty staircase. There was a pink sign at the alley mouth offering 24 Hour videos. _“You were the only one,_ ” the voices droned. “ _Do you believe -_ ”

Malfoy blew smoke in Harry’s face. “Mother doesn’t like my new habits.”

“But how did you, - you can’t have lost your money Malfoy, your parents would do anything for you I know that, I was there.”

“They don’t like that I like men, Potter.”

He sucked on the cigarette again. He looked thin and a little ragged. Maybe he was telling the truth.

Harry’s heart had started beating faster, the way it always did when he was close to Malfoy. He recognised the feeling. It was the excitement of being about to discover something. A thought hit him with the strength of Firewhisky. Malfoy knows.

“Now if you excuse me, my time is money. If you want to keep gawping I’ll charge you to stare.”

“Oh God. Malfoy, you’re a, you’re.” He stopped, boggled. “You’re not are you?”

“Yes,” said Malfoy lazily, “I am.”

All this trouble and now he shows up. There has to be a connection. When had he been wrong before? Malfoy’s eyes glittered like metal. The green light flickered around him like some endless Avada Kedavra. It seemed a new magic had come into being in the world, harsh, unpredictable and intoxicatingly strong. He knew he needed to ask Malfoy about the failures of magic, but he was wandering off into the green light, tossing his cigarette end onto the slimy flagstones.

“How much?” said Harry.

Malfoy turned his head back and mouthed, “Two Hundred.”

“Come off it, Malfoy.”

“What do you want?” He had turned and was leaning against the wall again in his skinny t-shirt and self-destructing trousers. Harry guessed there was an awful lot on the menu, if he had wanted.

“I want to talk to you.”

“Two hundred pounds.”

“For heaven’s sake Malfoy, it’s not like I want to do anything with you. I’m not like that. I’ve got a girlfriend.”

Malfoy was just raising an eyebrow in that supercilious manner of his. Harry was beginning to feel increasingly stupid.

“Alright,” he said. “I’ve only got seventy.”

Malfoy held out his hand as Harry reached for his wallet. His hand clamped around the notes, leering into his face with that look of controlled disgust Harry had grown familiar with. He wrested the money out of Harry’s hand. He was aware of being too close to Malfoy, of having the dirty, sour cigarette smell from his breath in his nostrils. Harry was beginning to feel filthy just by standing next to him.

Malfoy lowered his eyelids, and Harry could see the fine veins under the bruising. Up close, he looked so dreadfully vulnerable. Up this close he could see the bruises, the shadows, the old sectumsempra scar that he hadn’t known he had.

Malfoy always got him with pity, always and always. Harry really wished he was immune.

“I need to go tell Andy,” said Malfoy, “and see if the room’s free.”

Harry grabbed at his arm. Letting Malfoy out of his sight was not in the plan. He twisted and writhed as if the hold was hurting him but Harry knew he wasn’t grasping him that tight.

“He’s just in that club there.”

Malfoy’s composure was getting wobbly. Harry had a feeling he’d like to meet this Andy guy and have a few words. His grip on Malfoy’s arm tightened.

“Please.”

The last came out as almost a sob. No prizes as to where the bruises came from then. Harry wanted to pull him closer and whisper that he didn’t have to do this, but this was Malfoy and he’d probably think he’d lost his mind. Besides, Malfoy had started shivering.

“Alright,”

Harry let him go. He receded nervously towards the empty staircase, clearly having to hand his money over. In the Village someone popped a champagne bottle, and the voices sang out _“I wait for you”_ over a pulsing, hypnotic bassline. It felt weird to be yards away from a bar full of people. His mind was whirring. He was sure he could find a way out for the poor bastard if he wanted it. There was work going in the Ministry, even for wizards on the wrong side as long as you had a reasonable recommendation. Saving Malfoy was turning into another of his bad habits.

He waited.

 _Champagne popping._

He kicked the side of the alley. Bloody Malfoy.

  


***


	4. Chapter 4

  
**Moor Street, Soho, 26th September 1998**   


Draco had got a new wand. The ministry wording on the order requiring the Malfoys to remain at the Manor without magic had been vague as to whether or not he was included. Diagon Alley had been teeming with wizards straining to get a glance of what a failed Death Eater looked like but Mr Ollivander had honoured his request without reference to their past.

He pointed his wand, birch wood and Gryphon claw, flexible, eleven and a half inches, towards the scuffed brown door at the head of the stairs and lazily flicked it open.

“Do you mind?”

The wolves rolled apart on the sagging double bed. Draco threw down a heavy wad of notes on the dressing table. He walked to the mirror, took out his wand and pointed it at his face. The bruises vanished, the cut sealed and sunk into unremarkable pale skin. Draco did not bruise easily. He did not carry scars. The Dark Mark had vanished from his forearm on the morning of Voldemort’s defeat and his various run ins with Potter had left no permanent damage. You could sort of see the scar from that time he hexed him in the toilets, but only if you knew it was there. Unlike Potter, his skin had no history.

He always made more when he roughed his face up before he went out. Suckers think you’re safe if you look vulnerable. They think you’re a bit of fool who lets themselves get treated like that and that you won’t give them any trouble. He went home, forgot them and wiped the bruises away.

“What the fuck have you been doing in here anyway?” He sat at the dressing table and started counting out the notes into stacks of hundreds. Now he was a man he did not allow people to bruise him. His past was full of failed protectors and most of them were dead. Since the war ended, he was protecting himself and he was good at it.

Tara raised her head. Charlie pulled the duvet around herself. Draco had no interest in wolf-bones and went on through his nights haul, throwing the notes down, each one a little victory, a red and purple vindication of his survival.

“How much d’ya get.”

“Six hundred and twenty five,”

“Clever boy.”

“I could have got more but it was a good time to stop.” He picked up his trousers from the floor and headed to the shower.

The shower was a bit grim but it worked. Most of the tiles had come loose and the frayed grey carpet surrounding was soggy with watermarks and rot. He could have gone back to the Manor and luxuriated in any one of the five bathtubs there, but here he had freedom. He had authenticity here too, and he knew the Potters of this world with their Muggle-raised sob-stories had thought him sadly lacking on that front. The truth was seventy pounds in his pocket. The truth was that manor born and pure blooded as he was he was just as good at surviving on the tough edges of Muggle world as anyone. Sucks to be Potter, he thought, on his own ground and yet still losing miserably. The shower might be dismal, but the shower cream was expensive, finest Ambergris and Reeks of Diagon alley, perfumers to the wizarding world since 1173. He was in a slum of convenience but he did not let his standards slip. He sunk into the heavily scented water rinsing today’s punters off his skin, every leering look paid back in full with everything they had, including Potter.

In the warm water he thought he should have toyed with Potter more, taken him somewhere, reduced him further before he’d finally failed to make his excuses and left. He played out scenarios, vanishing out of Potter’s arms as he loomed in for a kiss, getting him naked and disappearing with his clothes. It was nearly enough to get a rise out of him although that was somewhere he wasn’t going to go. He pushed the last of the foam off his skin and turned off the water. The ones who survived in this world were the ones who kept their standards and wanking over Potter well, that would be a sign he was slipping.

He pulled on his familiar, comforting, Gladrags trousers. Less showy but infinitely a better cut and more suited to him. Towelling his hair, he couldn’t help but think something was missing.

When he returned to the other room the wolves were sitting up on the bed. They’d pulled some sort of negligee things on so were at least semi-decent. Weekends were time for a party after all, and they usually took a bit of this and that and raised hell. They didn’t stop in once place for long because Draco quickly got restless, but they ran the alleys, stayed out with the crowd on the streets, or had ice-cream in the 24 hour parlour in Leicester square. Not bad ice-cream either by muggle standards and not bad at all, particularly when your mouth was dry from dancing and running and the dawn was coming on. Draco had no qualms about muggle drugs. He didn’t like alcohol, he hated how dull and malleable it made one. Nobody looked good drunk. He just didn’t see why he should miss the fun of an end of week celebration just because he wanted something to sharpen him and to keep him awake and watching. If it pissed off the Dark Lord so what? The Dark Lord was dead.

The wolves might be gross but at least they had learnt the art of survival. When Greyback had gone, they’d not surrendered themselves but taken themselves off to the liveshows and were now getting paid in person for whatever it was Greyback had got them doing for free. Cash on the nail was a powerful antidote. They could pay for their own fur coats and fake jewels now, or they could pay for someone to go out and steal them. They’d even talked their boss into renting them the shabby flat above the tattoo place. He didn’t ask what they did at full moon. All the remnants of Greyback’s pack had been offered transformation places in St Mungos. He told himself they took up that offer, but he stayed away once a month all the same.

“So what are we up too?” he smiled. He had the money, he had a void to fill and it was time.

“We’ve got a surprise for you,” said Tara.

Draco looked down at the bed cover and noticed it was covered with random objects. There was a roll of shiny paper, some scissors, and a small knot of what looked like dark sand wrapped very neatly in some strange clear film.

“You’ll like it,” said Charlie. “It’s like finding somniferum all over again.”

“I’m sick of somniferum,” said Draco, but they laughed at him, the same knowing laugh they’d had in his father’s potion study. He hated it when they knew something they didn’t. He wanted to remind them that he was the wizard and he was the one who didn’t have to go through on his promises to all those dirty men with skin like clammy ham and eyes like goblins. He was clever.  
Charlie was running the flame of the lighter over some rectangles of silver. He watched her and she ignored him. She wrapped the next bit of paper into a tube.

“You’ll love this,” said Tara.

“It’s a bit fiddly, but you’ll pick it up soon enough.” She handed Draco the folded paper.

“Now,” said Charlie. “Don’t be a twat and waste it.” She unwrapped the little clear pouch and put a tiny amount of the brownish stuff on the foil. “Watch what we do.”

She put some of the stuff on her own piece of foil, put a silver tube in her mouth and Tara began running her lighter under the foil, the little bead started to sizzle and smoke. Charlie tilted the paper down and they moved together in unison forward down the run of foil. When they finished Charlie lay back and smiled. Tara grinned at her and pawed at her tit playfully. Draco shuddered.

“Now it’s your turn,” she said to Draco.

He wasn’t really sure he wanted to. From the lolled out state of Charlie he was sure this was going to be somniferum all over again. He didn’t want the wolves having this little secret to themselves though, so he put the tube in his mouth and held up his own bit of tinfoil. Tara grinned at him. He felt sure this was dirty, he looked at the burnt stains on Tara’s foil and thought this is dirty, but he went with it because there was honesty in surviving dirt that the world did not think him capable of.

When he inhaled the first lungful it tasted disgusting, sort of like rotten vinegar. He carried on with the warm feeling building, trying to keep the bead on the paper and stopping it sizzling up. Tara pulled his hand down to make him tilt the paper as the bead started to speed up. For a moment, he was in an extreme somniferum rush. It washed up right over him followed quickly by an equally powerful wave of nausea. He tried to follow the line but the smoke was hurting his head and he was feeling horribly sick. His mind didn’t shut down the way the vials damped it, it was kept in place by the pounding pressure in his head. He had barely got to the end of the tinfoil before he was leaning over the bed retching violently.

After a while he sat up. He felt like he had been poisoned. His brain felt five times too big for his head. He stared at them. They were busy smoking another line. He pointed his wand at the vomit then curled up to sleep on the floor.

~*~

 **  
Malfoy Manor, Wiltshire, October 7th 1998   
**

The West End was transitory. It changed every night; there were always new faces, new clubs, and new neon facades on the grotty old Georgian buildings. Nobody looked up, so nobody cared that above the glittering doorways the windows were chipped and sagging. He’d sit on the window frame of the wolves’ flat, smoking cigarettes and watching the night waft by. The muggles never noticed him. He barely saw them, all he noticed was light and music and movement.

At the Manor everything was dull and staid. The parameters of life were so heavily defined by tradition. If being a pure-blood is so fucking superior thought Draco, why do we have to prove it every day by eating dinner at the same table our great-grandparents did. Why don’t we do what we please and let the superiority seep out? He looked at the table in disgust. His mother’s abandoned Daily Prophet was on it and he didn’t care at all for exploding Salamander farms near New Delhi. They probably didn’t even know how to do a decent flame freezing charm out there. He flicked through in boredom and disgust. On page seven there was a small article:

 _SHOCK DESCISION TO CLEAR MALFOY FAMILY “BACKED BY HARRY POTTER”  
In an unexpected move the Ministry of Magic finally announced that no further action would be taken against Lucius Malfoy (44) and his wife Narcissa (38) following their role in the takeover of the Wizarding World by He Who Must Not Be Named. Lucius, a known Death Eater, has been under house arrest in his home at Malfoy Manor since the defeat of You-Know-Who in May of this year. Acting Head of Magical Law Enforcement and good friend of Harry Potter (18), Kingsley Shacklebolt (35) gave a statement today:_

 _“After carefully considering the evidence and in light of testimony given by key eye-witnesses to the downfall of V*******t it has been decided that all charges against the Malfoy family are to be dropped. It has become apparent that all members of this family had given clear and demonstrable proofs of acting against their Master in the time leading up to and during the Battle of Hogwarts. In light of this, the Ministry believes it not in the wizarding interest to pursue matters against them.”_

 _In further questioning by the Prophet following this statement Mr Shacklebolt would not give exact details of the nature of the Malfoys’ contribution or the identity of the eye-witnesses, although sources close to the Minister have confirmed the key informant was none other than Battle of Hogwarts Hero Harry Potter. He also refused to discuss the allegations that former Death Eaters have been involved in several high profile revenge acts of Magical Sabotage since the defeat of the Dark Lord._

 _When asked why the Malfoys were to be acquitted on the grounds of a last minute switch of allegiance following years of alleged Death Eater activity, Mr Shacklebolt replied:_

 _“Better late than never.”_

Draco smirked. Funny that, he thought, damn funny. Potter coming out to save all our arses now would have nothing whatsoever to do with seventy pounds in my pocket and a chance meeting in an alley, would it?

His mother came in quietly and sat down beside him. She was still in her kimono with her make-up undone. He didn’t like her like this. He stiffened his back and hoped this would drive away any chance of conversation. He wasn’t so lucky.

“Draco, I think it’s important you know what happened on the night of the Battle of Hogwarts.”

He looked at the polished table. He wanted to be outside. He had an aching yearning for city air on his face.

“I do know. I was there.” Draco stood up, his mother held her hand out, dumbly, to try and stop him. Her touch made him shudder. The chair behind him blocked his escape.

“No – In the woods, after the Dark Lord attempted to kill Harry Potter the first time, I betrayed him.”

Draco shrugged. He didn’t have the time for other people’s issues.

“Potter would have won anyway.”

“The Dark Lord asked me to check if the boy still lived. I lied. I said he was dead so your Father and I could go back to the castle and find you.”

He looked at his fingernails. They were very clean.

“That was an extraordinarily stupid thing to do.”

His mother looked at the table. If he was hurting her she wasn’t showing it, but then that was rather a family speciality. You could stick a skewer through her heart and she wouldn’t flinch, thought Draco. Now she expects me to be grateful for that.

“I just thought you should know why the Ministry is not acting against us.”

Draco wanted to snort. He thought, if it hadn’t been for a meeting in an alleyway, Potter would have left us hanging for years.

“And if you’d have given Potter away?” Draco smiled a glittering smile. Two could play at acting blank.

“If I had given Potter away we would have been victorious. He would have forgiven anything -,”

Draco looked at her wondering vaguely if she believed this drivel. It’s amazing how far some people will go not to admit they’ve been taken in. He knew; he’d heard people shout out behind him, don’t go there, it’s a rip off and yet the men would turn to him unconcerned, barely believing that this beautiful boy had come out of the night and for a few notes would let them touch him. He saw them, panting, shaking, trotting beside him and not caring for one minute if it was a scam as long as this young man stayed in their presence.

“He would have forgiven nothing. You saw what he did to Father. You saw what he did to your sister. I think what happened is you wised up and realised this was a man who didn’t forgive. You would never be safe as a servant of the Dark Lord because he despised the instinct that made people become servile. Being his servant was as safe as being a cauldron in Neville Longbottom’s potions class. So, you got smart. Don’t drag me into it.”

“What did he do to you?”

There was a bird singing in the tapestry that hung on the left wall of the breakfast room. It made no noise, it was not a real thing, but its throat undulated and its beak opened.

“He did nothing to me.”

She reached out for a moment as if to hold him. He squeezed behind the chair and took a step back. “Draco tell me now what did he do to you!”

“You saw. A bit of cruciatus. A lot of insults. Nothing much. No permanent damage.”

She dropped her head. For one moment she slumped, before those over-stretched family tendons forced her spine straight again.

“I gave up everything, our last hope of redemption, to see that you were safe. I sacrificed everything for you.”

He looked at her steadily and decided he preferred her impassive.

“Then your sacrifice was worthless. When you lied to the Dark Lord, when you ran to the castle, you were following your own instincts. I am not responsible for those actions. I never asked for them.” He felt a bit sickened by his behaviour, but also remarkably liberated. He was going to have to leave the Manor after this, and begin again as a truly new person. Staying here only hurt him. Leaving forever would set him free. He hardened his voice because he thought for a moment it might shake.

“Come on Draco,” she said, snapping at last, “I thought I raised you to have more originality than to resort to adolescent clichés. Are you going to tell me next ‘I never asked to be born’?”

Well I didn’t, he thought. However immature it sounds, no parent’s sacrifice for their children is ultimately respected because they were the ones who inflicted life upon them in the first place.  
He worked his way fully around the chair so it was between him and his mother.

“I’m going to go now Mother. Now you and Father are free to carry wands again and get on with things, I should go.”

She was crying silently into her hands.

“What did that monster do to you, what did that - bastard do to you?”

“Nothing that he did not do to plenty of others.” He turned away from her and strode determinedly towards the door.

“Please, Draco, you’re my son, you owe me that much please.”

He felt tears on his face as he shut the door behind him. He always cried too easily. He hoped his mother hadn’t noticed. He wouldn’t want to give her false hope. He headed upstairs to his bedroom to pack his trunk.

~*~

 **  
Soho, London, November 1998 – February 1999   
**

The year spluttered into its final embers. Draco noticed the little room he rented had no heating, but what did he care, it was cheap, pitifully cheap and he could light the room with conjured flames if he wished, he was a wizard and he could do as he pleased. There was frost in his nostrils as he walked the streets these days, although he noticed a little blue tinge to his lips and a sense of being huddled into himself did not do his popularity any harm. The crowds had thinned out when September ended, but there were always people somewhere if you kept moving, around the tube station at Piccadilly, or in the clubs. He’d taken to making his way into muggle clubs where the pickings were much more lucrative, even if he had to look a little smarter. Sometimes he offered sex, sometimes drugs and sometimes the lasciviously stated possibility of both. It all ended the same way anyway. You couldn’t hit the same clubs too regularly in case the doormen started to recognise you, but they were a good bet when the streets were quiet.

The wolves were getting dull lately. It was too cold to go out causing trouble they said, although they had their thick fur coats and Draco had heating charms. They’d rather stay in with that rancid tarry stuff they smoked on tinfoil. He knew what it was now, he’d known from finding syringes in the toilets at Piccadilly Circus Burger King where he had been hunched round a paper coffee cup, waiting for a punter to pick him out. The place was 24-hour and a good place for a sucker when everywhere else was shut.

He’d not seen the man follow him into the toilet. He doesn’t want to be seen, thought Draco. Fine, he thought, a wary one, all the better for me. The man had run his hand up Draco’s leg and Draco’s boot had crunched on something on the floor. There were more of them, lying there, looking like peculiar insects with metal noses and blood in their bellies.

“Junkies,” said the man. “Disgusting.”

“What?”

“You know, heroin?” said the man.

Draco had looked dead ahead into the cubicles, planning his next move. The fact that he was sure he’d heard the wolves call it heroin was distracting him. There was never any blood though, or any strange little objects like these. The man put his fingers in Draco’s hair.

“Are you a junkie?” his voice was tender, the man’s hands running over his arms as if he was feeling for clues there. He had the thick smell of men’s urine in his nose.

“No,” said Draco. He had known the man had wanted him to say yes, but he didn’t feel like putting that on offer. He turned to look at the man through his bruised eyelids. “I think you’ll need to pay for that if you want to keep pawing.”

The man laughed. “So you can get more drugs?” He pushed Draco forwards, against the plastic of the cubicle door, the lock cut briefly into his wrist. “Don’t worry, I’ll give you exactly what you’re worth after I’ve –,”

He never finished his sentence. Draco blasted him backwards against the sinks; he slumped to the floor with a trickle of blood running from his nose. He wanted to use the cruciatus curse but felt sure any screams would bring people running. He settled for rummaging through the Muggles pockets for his wallet. He found it. It was empty. Draco laughed.

“ _Rennervate! Imperio!_ ”

He had discovered some weeks ago that Muggle money came from lit up metal holes in the wall, and that even an empty wallet was not necessarily the end providing the muggle could be brought to one of these curious machines.

“You will go to the nearest money point. You will remove all the money you can and then you will return here. Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” said the Muggle dreamily.

Draco left the toilets and ordered another cup of tea waiting for the man’s return. He swished the teabag around listlessly with a brittle white stick and added a lot of milk and sugar. The man had said junkie like the Death Eaters said Mudblood, so even when you first heard it, you knew it was a bad thing to be. He had smoked that stuff the werewolves used again. It was too cold for ice-cream and he often felt grotty after a night out these days. On those mornings he felt cold and doubted his life was going anywhere. His skin crawled. A couple of lines of that filthy, vinegary stuff sorted him out. It left him feeling pleasantly mellow and took the awkwardness away. He told himself he wasn’t a junkie. He was justifying himself to some sucker Muggle who had tried to beat him at his own game. It wasn’t like he even liked the stuff. It was just easier to get hold of than somniferum these days and useful after a heavy night out.

The man returned to the upstairs of Burger King. Draco followed him into the toilets. He took the money. He blasted the muggle against the wall of the toilet until he was unconscious again then he left the Burger King and never went back.

~*~

At the beginning of December the streets started to liven up again. Lights started to be slung across the road ways, tinsel appeared in the video shop windows. Draco started loitering in the narrow alleys off Regent Street, sparkling white stars above him, as he slouched and shivered and attracted the eye of men left to loiter while their wives went Christmas shopping. He was stood with his eye on one now, pretending to watch a snow covered train circle around and around again in a glittering shop window. The whole store front was filled with hundreds of moving Muggle toys. Electricity, the werewolves said. He felt it was a terrible trick by Muggles on their children, to create for them this world of magic and then to snatch it away. Draco kept his eye on his mark and thought he must be quite a picture of pathos, the little blonde urchin staring into a toyshop window.

He thought of Diagon Alley. That must be gearing up for Christmas too, although he didn’t like to go there these days. There were just too many stares.

The waif act worked. The Muggle had slid up beside him.

“Do you have anywhere to go?” said the Muggle softly.

“No,” said Draco sadly.

He led the Muggle amongst the bins of Kingly Court, an empty black fold of tarmac used to supply the pubs that faced onto Carnaby Street. He turned on him and smiled and the Muggle had blurted out something about needing to be quick because Shelia had only gone into John Lewis and then he had his wallet out and the money was dreamily being handed over and the man sent on his merry way. Draco felt quite seasonable amongst the brightly lit doorways throwing out scents of spices and hot alcohol. He almost fancied a drink himself, it was the time of the year for it, some warm red wine or good quality Madeira.

A chewed up moon loomed through the murk, three days past full. He had been staying in a hotel room off Tottenham Court Road for the last three days, but now judged it safe to return. He bought some cheese and prosciutto from I. Camisa's delicatessen to take back to the wolves and did get a decent bottle of red to go with it. He judged it a measured amount, a hint of civilisation rather than a desire to get stupid.

When he got up the stairs, Charlie was pacing. She looked almost distraught. She was nearly as pale as him, but her skin had a doughy texture to it. She was running her claws through her raffia hair, twisting it distractedly into rats’ tails.

“You recovered?” said Draco.

“We didn’t -,” said Charlie.

“Oh chill out Charlie,” said Tara from the bed, “It’s hardly like you miss it.” She lit a cigarette.

“What are you going on about?” Draco put the food down on the dressing table and pulled himself up onto the window ledge.

“We didn’t transform this month,” said Charlie, suddenly eyeing the wine. “And no, we’re not pregnant. We’d smell it.”

Tara rolled over towards a chipped cut glass ashtray they’d stolen from one of the bars.

“And you did a piss test.”

“I bought a kit this morning and we both checked.” She shrugged. “I wasn’t sure smelling would still work.” She hit Tara’s feet under the blankets. “I don’t _miss it_ , but I do want to know what’s going on.”

Draco cast a heating charm quickly then opened the window. He lit a cigarette, leant his head back against the window frame and breathed in deeply, smoke and night air.

“I told you, perhaps Greyback dying broke the curse,” said Tara.

“It doesn’t work like that,” said Charlie.

“You were a witch weren’t you?” said Draco.

The next thing he knew this head was bouncing off the window sill and he was spitting blood onto the frayed grey carpet. Werewolves could move damn fast when they needed to. They stared at each other, Tara looking mildly bored, Draco smarting, Charlie with her eyes wide open and nostrils flared, breathing heavily.

They discarded Draco’s picnic and got very stupidly stoned far too quickly.

~*~

He went home the weekend before Christmas, just to do his duty. His parents continued to look at him like a pretty pot orchid that had suddenly grown fangs and tentacles. He couldn’t stand the way his parents looked at him knowing what he had done and looking back knowing what they had done. His father did not have his qualms about firewhisky and got through a bottle both evenings although he was very quiet about it. They knew now they’d been scammed by a fraud. They guessed something of what that might have cost him. He couldn’t stand their memories and he couldn’t stand their defeat. He left after two days and went back to the West End.

Draco spent Christmas' Eve laughing with the girls of Gemini Blue. He’d snorted the lines 1999 off one of the showgirls mirrors and someone had taken a muggle photograph. Beginning again was a fine art and he had got it perfected.

Things got so quiet in January he was almost pinched. The room was pathetically cheap, and his needs were not that exotic. He didn’t have to order out from the Oyster Bar or Tahini; he could live just as well on meals from the Stockpot. He had not died on the simple and stolid food of Hogwarts, he was sure he could manage again until things picked up. He had contemplated a trip to Gringotts, but the portal behind the Leaky was playing up again and it would be just his luck to be stuck in a street full of irate wizards for three days, all of whom would secretly blame him for the disruption. It was there if he needed it, but at present it seemed more prudent to ride things out.

It wasn’t bad, but it was a struggle to get the rent money, some good quality cream for his skin, it always got dry in the winter, and three meals a day. He sat in on the weekends and smoked that horrible stuff of the wolves’ because it was free and something to do. It kept the cold out, and it wasn’t so bad if there was nothing else. His main problem with it was it felt such a waste of an evening, losing hours lying about slopping tea down your front.

Spring came with the first payday after Christmas. The streets started to busy up as money flowed again and there were queues outside the metal boxes where Muggles collected their cash. Draco and the wolves celebrated with a Thai banquet on the floor of their room. It was hardly summer, but it was a start.

One evening in February he noticed it hadn’t got dark yet. It wasn’t warm, but the sky was brightest blue and there were sprouting crocuses in the grounds of Saint Anne’s Church. Draco could taste spring in the freshness of the air and in the low sun on the horizon, staining the glass fronts of the restaurants gold.

That night was like a little summer all over again. He had recently taking to haunting a corner of Denman Street, near Piccadilly Tube station, where people, if not punters, about were always around. Someone had taken the bait by four o’clock, and as the afternoon slid into evening the corner of Denman Street seemed to be in a world of its own tonight. Whenever he materialised there was someone waiting. It didn’t do to turn down gifts offered by goblins as the saying went.

The sky was just darkening into a brilliant deep turquoise when a man lumbered up to him, smelling like he had emerged from one of the neighbouring pubs. Draco didn’t normally risk men who had been drinking too heavily, they didn’t get any less drunk under the force of imperio and they were clumsy to manoeuvre. He looked at the punter with steady appraising eyes and knew the look would be read as need and desperation. You can be my saviour tonight. He always gave marks that look, and it was always a deal clincher. Draco judged the night was lucky and the man steady enough even though he could smell the alcohol on his breath as he walked beside him. The Muggle walked a bit like Goyle’s father. Draco led him on to the waste ground behind Great Windmill Street, the pinkish rubble where brick buildings had been razed.

The Muggle put his hand under Draco’s coat, stroking his side. When Draco took out his wand and cursed him he stared up with this huge, flabby faced smile of utter adoration, Draco was almost knocked back by the devotion. He wondered briefly what they felt, all these men, what ghosts haunted them beneath the enchantment. By now an awful lot Muggles must see the shadow of him on the edges of their consciousness, like some misremembered dream.

The edges of the sky were turning a dusky rose. Draco could see the bare walls of the surviving buildings thrown into relief against it. Odd how some nights can be so clear. A sliver of a crescent moon was beginning to radiate. His heart soared. London could paint some amazing pictures. He looked down to the Muggles hand, frozen in the streetlights, full of notes half way to being handed over.

The Muggle looked up into his face, an angry, questioning look.

“ _Imperio!_ ” shouted Draco.

“What the hell do you think you are playing at?”

Draco clutched his wand and thought very hard of the little room above the tattooists in Moor Street, but the air was thick as a wall of ice and would not let him through.

“ _Imperio!_ ” he shouted again, but he knew he should be running and he knew he had missed his chance when he felt the Muggle grab hold of his coat.

The Muggle hit him. He lost count of the times. He crumpled to his knees and instinct took over, dropping his wand and getting his hands up to protect his head. When he was on the ground, the Muggle kicked him, repetitively, so he had to move his hands and cough out metallic gobs of blood. He shouted but Draco couldn’t hear him, it was the usual stuff people said when they were laying into you, stuff about what an arsehole you are, and how you deserve this, and how this time they’re really, really going to hurt you. It was the same stuff that the Dark Lord said, that Auntie Bella said, that even Potter had said once after some Quidditch match a hundred years ago. The accents were different but the words were always the same.

As he grew less and less responsive, the Muggle seemed to give up. His voice quietened, he was getting out of breath. Beating somebody up was hard work, how much more so, he thought, if you had to do it Muggle style. There were a few more derisory kicks to his curled stomach and then he was left there, on his side with his breath rattling. He kept his eyes shut. He did not want to move from the floor. He wanted to lie there until his blood seeped away into the shattered bricks and the kind frost covered him, because he knew.

He knew now what he had been running from, all these months playing at being a muggle. He knew what the Dark Lord had said to him in that sham of a throne room, what revenge had been promised, and he knew now that the curse had come true.

It had got dark while he was being beaten up. A black patch spilt onto the ground around him, a hole opened up in space. Draco had no more need of time or space, of life or memory or the world as he knew it. He had said his goodbyes. He got to his feet and determinedly, methodically, stepped out of time.

***


	5. Chapter 5

**  
Borough High Street, London, Friday 5th January 2001.   
**

“Welcome to the Ministry of Magic Extraordinary Committee 283. These meetings have been held monthly since the collapse of magical ordinance, officially dated to 12th February 1999 believed to be a direct result of the defeat and death of the wizard Voldemort, with the aim of discovering the method used and if possible to reverse the destruction of magic throughout the known world. These meetings have become somewhat quieter of late…”

Hermione coughed sharply. She was right there, thought Harry. When they had started, nearly three thousand witches and wizards had shoved in to the atrium of the ministry, desperate for an answer to their fizzling world. Now it was just six, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Dean, Luna and himself, the parties with the most guilt. The others had all melted away as the chances of a breakthrough became all the more faint and the difficulties of adjusting to a life without magic took up more and more time.

Harry had been reasonably cushioned. Gold is gold after all, although he’d donated a lot of it to various transition charities. The way he saw it, he had no choice, not if he was ever going to sleep at nights again. Then he’d got that job with the Muggle Ministry, as an integration officer and done so well they’d ended up promoting him onwards when the rush had been dealt with. He slept pretty well now and could almost forget his peculiar schooling experience. Plenty of people in Whitehall had been to some weird schools; it wasn’t like he didn’t fit in. But he never missed a meeting, even though the meetings themselves were often rather short.

Hermione said some official blather to open, everyone said “nothing to report,” except Luna who would go on an extended digression about the possibility of magic being destroyed by the introduction of auto-spelled cheese graters into wizarding homes and a little more blather closed the meeting. Then they went to the Goose and Greyhound and got drunk, reminiscing about the way things were. He’d guessed that had become the point, these days. It wasn’t even that painful. They were all young and reasonably bright, three of them had been raised as muggles, Ron was a Weasley, and Neville and Luna, well, they had a lot of practice at not quite fitting in. They’d all managed to adapt. The Quibbler had even increased its circulation.

Ginny had gone to New York. He didn’t really want to think about that. She got the minutes by e-mail and always responded politely, in that half-joking way she always had. He wondered if she too was integrating, forgetting, in a city made of glass and concrete. He thought the strange surroundings might make it easier for her, the lack of memory on the polished marble of the clean bright tower blocks. She always seemed so small when he imagined her alone in that island of skyscrapers, but she’d said she wanted adventures. Dean had said she was looking good when he’d gone out there for one of his exhibitions. He said she’d been the only decent thing about the place and it reminded him of Newham. But Dean had said Ginny was laughing, flourishing.

He didn’t want to think about it.

Hermione coughed again. He realised the whole room was looking at him. The winter sun cast an isosceles triangle on the pale wood of the table.

“Oh,” said Harry quickly, “nothing to report.”

~*~

 **  
Chipping Ongar, Essex, 9th January 2001   
**

The problem with integrating wizards was they were always so cheery. The man opened the door with such hearty good manners Harry felt embarrassed to notice the filthy state of the living room, the rusty cauldrons collecting rainwater strewn across various corners of the lounge and the greasy candles that were clearly the only source of light.

“Mr Dumpole?” said Harry.

“Very pleased to meet you,” said the man. “Not often we have someone from the Ministry round.” He grinned. A witch with grey streaks in her flyaway sandy hair suddenly waved at him out of the gloom. She ran her hands over the dusty settee in an attempt to clear it. Harry noticed a half-finished antimacassar spread over the sofa back, the wool trailing where it had been left incomplete.

“And Mrs Dumpole?” said Harry.

“Please, call me Deirdre,” said the witch. “Can I offer you some lemon squash?”

Harry smiled and sat down on the grimy sofa and smiled back. “That would be lovely.”

He took the necessary paperwork out of the record bag slung over his right shoulder and realised the man was staring at him. He’d let his fringe get really out of control, but it wasn’t much use. The looks he got these days were ones of blank confusion.

“This is only a temporary measure, isn’t it?” said Mr Dumpole. “I mean, me and Deirdre are doing quite well at this Muggle living lark. We’re much better off than the Stuarts down in Parsley End.” He sat down on a sagging chair and looked at him expectantly with brown eyes sunken into a wrinkling face. “I caught him trying to use galleons down in the village shop the other day.”

“It’s just – paperwork,” said Harry as lightly as he could. Deirdre put a smeared glass into his hand and he smiled his thanks. His face could ache for hours after an assessment.

“Arthur’s been fantastic, of course. Helped us get all our gold converted just as soon as all this trouble started. Lucky we never trusted those goblins eh Deidre? We had most of my wages under a mattress upstairs, so we’ve been getting by. They’ve not found Diagon Alley again, have they?”

“No,” said Harry. We stopped searching for Diagon Alley months ago, he thought.

“Well, I’m sure it’s just a matter of time.”

Harry smiled again. Deirdre didn’t sit down but was flitting about, running the edge of her apron over the small collection of obsolete objects cluttering up the mantelpiece. There was a fire laid untidily in the grate, some coal and a lot of paper. Harry realised with a jolt it was mostly books.

“Let’s get this started, shall we?” he said kindly, “You were working for the Great Wizarding Railway at the time of -,”

“Drove the Hogwarts express for twenty five years,” said Mr Dumpole proudly, “daresay, I got you off to school more than once.”

“Many times,” said Harry. “I met most of my friends there.”

“Fine piece of wizardry that. Two hundred twenty five salamanders and could take you from here to Dundee every day without a day’s maintenance.” He paused. “Deirdre worked too, custom fitting broomstick twigs for Nimbus.”

“One of my favourite brooms,” said Harry. Mr Dumpole beamed at him.

“True, true. Probably didn’t do yours though, Deirdre was a specialist - did all the top league teams.”

The sandy haired witch blinked at Harry shyly and grinned.

“Did you do the Chudley Cannons?” said Harry.

“Oh no dear, I only did the best.”

They laughed. Harry sipped on his watery squash.

“And do you think, with a bit of help, we could look for a Muggle job for you? Do you think you’d be able to-,”

“Of course boy, why do you think we asked you here?” His mild face suddenly tightened into a grimace of anger. “We’ve always worked. Now we just want you to make yourself useful and something we can do to help out these muggles to tide us over until things get back to normal.”

~*~

Harry got off the train at Liverpool Street and found he didn’t want to go home. He stomped through the city, already emptying out, pale and miserable looking under the cold plastic snakes of unlit Christmas lights. He marched past the floodlight Bank of England without resolution or a shift in his mood, wishing he could work out an answer. He tramped the wasteland of Holborn, dead apart from a few half empty pubs and on into the West End. There were more lights here, more bars open but still half deserted and there was still nothing that could show him a way home. He thought of getting drunk but that seemed pointless, so he thought he should eat something instead, something stodgy with hopefully some sedating effect. He walked into the warm fat smell of the chippy without realising it, hoping the chips were decent here, decent enough to cheer him up.

And there on the red plastic seats, was Draco Malfoy.

 **  
Moor Street, Soho, January 11th 2001   
**

  
The icy wind was still blowing when Harry walked up to the narrow stairwell on Moor Street. Malfoy had said he lived here and it was the only staircase on the little street that seemed to have any indication of leading to the rooms above. The shop fronts on either side had been heavily boarded with thick blue wooden screens. A Westminster council notice gave details of planned demolition work. He headed up the narrow grey stairway filled with a peculiar sense of certainty. Tailing Malfoy had been one of the things he was good at. As he got to the scratched brown door he knew, as surely as he had done four years ago, that Malfoy was on the other side. There was no doorbell. He was used to that. Most of the wrecked houses of former wizards he had called on over the last seven months required knocking and shouting. He walked right up to the door and knocked and shouted. There was no answer.

He waited. It could have been a standard Ministry call, one of the hundred times he’d stood and patiently waited on the doorstep of a witch or wizard identified by concerned neighbours as being in difficulty. He knew the procedure, wait ten minutes, leave a letter, call again in one week. Procedures let people slip away. He knew Malfoy was on the other side of that door.

There was also the fact that two days ago he, Harry Potter, Integration Officer, had found Draco Malfoy, former wizard, clearly in material deprivation and mental distress in The Codfather chippy on Old Compton Street and pursued a rather unorthodox course of action.

He’d not taken him in to the Ministry Shelter. He’d not given him food tokens, or booked him a needs assessment at the Temporary Transition Centre. He’d not asked when his last medical check up had been and if he’d registered for National Insurance. Two nights ago, in direct contradiction of all Ministry guidelines and protocols he had pretty much grabbed Malfoy by the scruff of the neck and bundled him into a cab. He had taken him to his home. And when he found there, in his smart landlord furnished living room, they had nothing to say to each other, he had pushed him down on his clean flannelette sheets and fucked him.

He still didn’t know why.

The closed door was getting all the more worrying. Harry knew what he would have done four years ago. He knew what he’d have done if he had ever got to be an Auror. He was still that person. It was just these days he had to content himself with cheering smiles and polite encouragement. He had seen too many things that could lurk on the other side of locked doors to leave them. He could bury that knowledge, but he couldn’t unlearn it.

Harry kicked the door down. It hurt.

The temperature inside the room was somewhere below arctic. Malfoy was lying on the bed in a t-shirt, dead still, making a strange rattling noise in his chest. Harry’s reflexes kicked in before he registered them, he was already scanning the room for intruders, reaching into his pocket for a wand that wasn’t there. There was no sign of forced entry. A bare wooden chair stood by a chipped dressing table undisturbed. The windows were closed. Harry’s breathing slowed and he walked cautiously towards the bed.

On the table beside the bed was a thin belt, a dirty spoon, some torn off little white packets and a syringe. Harry’s mouth went dry. There had been bruises on Malfoy’s arms the night before last, but he hadn’t processed them. He knew somewhere in the world this happened, but he didn’t think it happened to anyone he knew. Hogwarts had been so full of uncomfortable adventures waiting for unsuspecting students no one really needed to resort to finding cheap thrills from pills and powders. So he had thought anyway.

Harry wondered if this was the desired effect. He looked down at Malfoy. His face was grey and his lips were turning blue. Harry knew nothing at all about drugs, but he knew when someone was in danger. This was not the desired effect. He sat down beside the bed and tried to shake the unconscious man awake. There was no response.

He’d had one of those muggle mobile phones for quite some time now, although he often needed reminding he had it. He turned away to pull it out of his pocket and tapped in three digits. He was just requesting an ambulance when the phone was knocked out of his hand.

Malfoy knelt over him, teeth bared, surprisingly strong, eyes rolling into the back of his head. He looked like a bloody inferi and his grip was just as hard to break. His breath was full of the sickly sweet stench of vomit.

“Don’t you dare. Don’t you fucking dare Potter. Do you know how hard I worked for this?”

Malfoy slumped as quickly as he’d jumped up, now a dead weight on Harry’s shoulders. Harry thought he smelt bad. He hadn’t noticed that two days ago, or it hadn’t been worse than he’d expected. He’d kind of guessed he hadn’t been the first person Malfoy had been with that day.

Or the third, said an unexpected voice from his subconscious.

What he hadn’t expected was that that had turned him on. What he really hadn’t expected is that had made him want to go down on Malfoy right there, on his couch, tonguing the overused arsehole and licking the fingerprints off that over-groped prick.

Hermione had occasionally commented that men were filthy. Up until that point, he had strongly disagreed.

He primly tried to get Malfoy back onto the bed. He moved against him a little, heavily. It was like trying to move a sleeping cat.

“Okay, no ambulance.” he said.

“You’re warm.” Malfoy hissed.

“And you are freezing,” said Harry. “I think you’ve overdosed.”

Malfoy rolled back on his back, grinning widely, still unable to open his eyes. “Really?”

Harry groped down the side of the bed for the mobile phone. This needed to stop here, stop with Malfoy getting the medical help he needed, whatever awkward questions Harry might end up facing.

He was distracted from his thoughts by a sharp thump to his shoulder.

“I said, no ambulance.”

“Malfoy – you’ve taken too much, you’re turning blue, and you need help.”

“You are ruining my buzz.”

The little shit was just impossible to save. Harry knew Malfoy wasn’t a brave man, he’d seen him snivelling too often to accuse him of courage, yet he seemed to shun safety like it scalded him.

“It’s not a buzz. You’re bloody dying.”

“You been under cruciatus haven’t you, Potter?”

It was amazing; he could have this lucid conversation but couldn’t keep his eyes open. His ashen face was very still but his voice carried some trace of emotion, probably hate.

“Yes.” Mainly by friends of your family, he wanted to add. Nearly by you, once.

“So you know the sensation. Now, if you call an ambulance, they take me to hospital where they hit me up with something I’m reasonably sure is muggle for Crucio. After half an hour of this muggle cruciatus, if I haven’t had a heart attack, they let me go. Then I’ve got to raise forty quid while still having my nerves flayed to make the pain go away. So really, if it’s all the same with you Potter, I’d rather die.”

“Did you do this deliberately?”

“No I fell on a syringe. Will you put that fucking phone down?”

“We could help you, if you’d let us, I know people who could help you, so you didn’t have to hurt. You don’t have to do this.”

Malfoy laughed a thin, wheezy laugh.

“Do I get a choice in this? Or are you just going to rush in and save the world again?”

“Of course you have a choice.” Harry realised he wasn’t holding the phone anymore but something thinner and colder. He had Malfoy’s hand in his.

“Then this is my choice. I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to live in the world you left behind Potter; I don’t want to scrape by in the ruins. I want to stay.”

“But this will wear off, won’t it?”

“I’ll get some more. I don’t mind how. I don’t care about how. That’s not important. I just want to be here.”

“Where are you, Draco?”

But he had turned his head away. He looked so peaceful. Harry was reminded of his own experience of being between life and death. It was a very soothing place to be. Malfoy’s breathing was getting slightly easier; Harry felt the danger slowly drain out of the room. It was getting dark. He decided to try another tack.

“Malfoy, what if magic came back? If we could find a way? Could you help us?”

“You can’t reverse a Carnifex Mundi hex, Potter. Not even the Chosen One can do that.” He took a deep breath. He was slowly getting more wakeful, moving around a bit and pulling his hand back. “Now please, fuck off out of my flat.”

“Can I leave you my number if you change your mind?”

“I don’t remember numbers.”

“I’ll write it down.”

“Get out Potter.”

Harry looked down at him sadly. He had saved enough people without their consent. He pulled himself off his slightly aching knees and walked away. Outside the West End was pearly and dark, occluded by a bank of freezing fog. There was a numb feeling in his hands that wasn’t to do with the cold. It felt as if a decision had been made or a pathway closed off, and that the only way ahead was forward.

When he got to Brixton and tried to call Hermione he realised his wallet and his mobile phone were missing. He went back to Moor Street the next day to challenge the albino git at last. Maybe getting him arrested would encourage him to get up of the bed and stop moping. When he got there the doorway had disappeared behind the builders hoardings, already half covered in fly posters.

~*~

From: << ginnylane@hotmail.com >>  
To: << harry.potter@transition.odpm.gsi.gov.uk >>, << Neville.Longbottom@kew.org >>, << dt@stolenspace.com >>,  
<< mrfilth@yahoo.co.uk >>, << luna@cityroads.org.uk >>, << hgranger@kcl.ac.uk>>  
3rd April 2001 10:32 EDT

Hi guys,

Okay I’ve booked the tickets and it’s official, I’ll be back to London 27th April, so I’ll even get to a meeting while I’m here.

Dean – I want to see this installation. I’ve got no fixed plans so give me a date. Ron says get a curry afterwards. Anyone else fancy a Brick Lane curry?

Ron – I’m going to Ottery on the 5th, I know we’ll both be hungover to hell but if I’ve got to, you’ve got to. The Mothership is calling to us ;)

Harry – Why yes, Malfoy was a total prick in my sixth year. I know my brother’s ongoing love affair with the ferret is legendary, but he’s right on that. It’s like he was always causing trouble and then blaming other people for a laugh. I think Auntie Bella was starting to rub off and he was going a bit mental.

Hermione – Chain reaction theory. I’ll explain more when we can get some drinks together.

Can’t wait to see you all again,

Ginny xx

~*~

  
**  
Half-Moon Lane, London, 27th April 2001   
**

  
“Ginny texted me from the airport,” said Harry to Hermione, as he chopped up green beans for the pot. He wasn’t quite sure when he learnt to cook, but he found himself quite good at it. It had become quite the muggle fashion for young men to cook, not that he’d known much about muggle fashions previously, but he’d never imagined Uncle Vernon in the kitchen. They all seemed to do it, all the boys in his office, brag about their signature dishes, their authentic Aloo Gobi or Teriyaki salmon. Despite the amount of pride on the line, even the most egocentric of his colleagues were forced to admit Harry was good. He supposed he’d had the advantage of being trained in using knives and scales and simmers and boils twice weekly since the age of eleven. It was what they called transferable skills. He’d spent two years hunting for them in the stories of the most distressed and dishevelled wizards at the Transition centre. Everybody must have some skills to bring over they were told, if you looked hard enough.

Ginny said she hadn’t cooked since July 1999.

Hermione was writing notes at the kitchen table, oblivious to the fact it was about to be used for supper. “Are you still obsessing about Malfoy?”

“Look I just think it’s odd. He was there at the Dark Lord’s HQ and then he completely disappears. It’s weird.”

He hadn’t told them about the alley, or the chip shop, or the room above Moor Street. He wouldn’t know where to start.

“Lots of wizards have disappeared. It’s kind of a coping mechanism.”

“I don’t trust Malfoy when he disappears.” Harry paused, adding the beans to the bubbling saucepan, “Think about our sixth year. Malfoy vanishing off the map and Snape going on about the Dark Arts -,”

“And look how wrong you were there.”

“We were there.”

Hermione considered her notes, wrinkled her nose and conceded. “We were there.”

Ron wandered in through the living room up to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of beer.

“’Mione?”

She nodded and he put the opened drink down beside her. He opened another for himself and took a swig.

“So are you going to get off the table to allow our guest to serve supper to us?”

“How long have I got, Harry?”

Harry adjusted one of the knobs to low. “Ten minutes.”

The doorbell rang. Harry felt a strange lurch of anxiety. He turned his back to the stove and took a long gulp of his own drink. Ron stood up and ambled into the hallway. He could hear him talking to Ginny, taking her bag, doors opening and closing.

When Ginny finally appeared she was rather pink nosed but still very pretty. New York hadn’t changed her. She put a plastic carrier bag on the table.

“I’m not too late am I? It’s just my train was delayed half an hour coming into Victoria.” She walked up to Harry and gave his arm a gentle squeeze before peering into the saucepan inquisitively.

“No, you’re just about on time,” said Harry. “That’s Tuscan bean stew, by the way.”

Ron appeared and investigated the contents of the carrier bag.

“Nice work sis,” he said, putting the beers in the fridge. He handed her an open bottle and she pulled up a chair to the table.

“I don’t know,” said Hermione suddenly, “There’s lots of history of muggle events, trying to wipe out a people and so forth, there’s whole sections in the library on extermination, but there’s not one that I can see that had any tell-tale signs of magic, they’re all very mundane, very production-line. There was one case that was possibly magical, noted in the Torres Strait at the turn of the twentieth century, but it was a muggle account and when you consider that and the cultural differences, I don’t know if it will be much help.”

“You’ve got some ideas though,” said Ginny.

“Grub up,” said Harry.

“I have some ideas,” said Hermione, folding up her paperwork. “But I want to hear about your theory too. Can you grab the butter for us Ron?”

“We’ve only got three spoons,” said Ron.

“Harry’s already got one,” said Hermione, plonking a loaf of bread down at the centre of the table. “I think it was that they removed that community’s reason for existing.”

“Do you need another beer, Harry?”

“They what?” said Harry, bringing the saucepan over to the table.

“The curse removed the people’s reason for existence, the actions by which they defined themselves. They died out.”

“Cheerful tale then,” said Ron. “Anyway, thanks for dinner, Harry.”

Harry deposited the saucepan back on the stove and took his place at the table to three appreciative raised bottles. They all applied themselves to the food thoughtfully.

“What I want to know,” said Ron, “Is why I can’t cook like this, and I was just as bad as you at potions.”

“I was quite good at potions actually,” said Hermione, “so the cheesecake’s bought from Tesco’s.”

They emptied their bowls and then sat around the table for a bit, sipping their drinks and letting the food go down. After a while Ginny said thoughtfully:

“So are you ready to hear my thoughts?”

“It’s got to be less depressing than ‘Mione’s.”

“Well, it’s like what I do at work; it’s like a chain reaction. It takes a large amount of energy to start it off, say destroying Hogwarts, but after that initial wave it will become self perpetuating. Like you said, you need power, or positivity, belief in yourself to perform magic. You needed to know you could perform a patronus before you could perform a patronus.” Ginny waved her bottle enthusiastically, “but what then happens if one day you can’t perform a patronus?”

“You become a civil servant,” said Harry. “That’s what I did.”

“Transition worker,” said Ron, “Don’t put yourself down.”

“All I’m saying is that once the first implosion happened, its knock on effects was big enough to weaken everyone’s magic, to the extent where it becomes hit and miss, and then with every failure the chance of a successful future magical performance becomes decreased, leading to increased damage in the individual’s innate magical capacity-,”

“Innate magical capacity - where the hell are you working again, Gin?”

“I do a very boring job for General Electric,” she took another swig of her beer. “I was alright at potions, but better at arithmancy. Plus I can get my Dad all the spark plugs he wants.”

“It doesn’t explain the Holyhead Harpies though, does it? Dropping out of the sky like that; they had no reason to doubt their innate ability to fly, they were top of the league.”

“But if every failure could be harnessed into the formulae eventually it could develop almost into a self-sustaining being, feeding on each failure, growing slowly stronger until it was strong enough to overcome even the most confident and unsuspecting.”

“But, but it’s still magic,” said Ron. They all looked at him.

“Cheesecake Ronald,” said Hermione after an embarrassing thirty seconds.

“No don’t you see? It makes no sense. You’re using magic to destroy magic right? So eventually at some point the destruction will become so severe the hex itself will stop working.”

Harry moved the saucepan to the draining board so Ron could put the dessert down in the centre of the table.

“So you are talking over-arching self fulfilling master spell that absorbs everything and then at the height of its power burns out?” Hermione raised an eyebrow.

“I think that’s what I said,” said Ron through a mouthful of lemon cream.

“If it has left no trace whatsoever, how can we possibly reverse it?”

“What if it did?” said Harry. “What if it did leave something behind?”

He couldn’t help it. Draco’s face invaded his mind with his tired smudgy eyes and his thin lips hooked to a cynical smile. The vision was so intense it nearly made him blush. It’s there, he thought. It’s on his flesh.

“Carnifex Mundi,” said Harry.

~*~

  
**Kings Cross, 10th December 2001**   


  
Harry didn’t know why he had come here. He didn’t know why he didn’t trust the Police, the street wardens and the outreach workers whose job it was to find the lost every night. It’s all about you, isn’t it Harry, said the voice in his head, four years on, it’s still all about the Chosen One, the one who could save the world. He felt Snape sneer at him from the shadows as he mounted the steps out of King’s Cross underground. Not that the bright lights of the ticket hall allowed for any shadows.

Well, I am here, he thought, two o’clock appointment, Birkenhead Street CCTV control room, with two of the Home Office’s own funded street wardens to look through footage. They say they’ve got a sighting and we need to be sure. I need to be sure.

It’s all about you, isn’t it Potter? repeated the Snape in his head.

Outside in the icy afternoon street, under the station canopy, girls were working. Kings Cross smelt of exhaust fumes and chip wrappers. Men were loitering across the road, watching, holding super-strength lager cans in their hands. Harry followed the crown to the pedestrian crossing, eyes down, ignoring them as everybody else did. It felt wrong. The lights took a long time to change. Busy commuters around him shifted from leg to leg.

When he got across to Birkenhead Street there were more men in stained tracksuit bottoms and filthy jeans, hanging around, too thin and too nervous. He tried not to look, but he kept looking. He couldn’t shake the foolish belief that if he looked hard enough, if he stared into enough dark alleyways he would find Malfoy. He always had before. They’d always existed in synchronicity, wherever there was trouble, there was Draco Malfoy getting in the way.

He wanted to tell Ray he was here, but he was nervous about getting his phone out of his pocket. He had directions and it wasn’t so far. Just at the top of the street. There was another group hanging around the open windows of a new build block, plastic fronted, occasionally cat-calling or throwing stones at the higher windows. Harry was suddenly caught by a smell so pungent it was almost as if he had walked into it, a chemical smell, extremely sweet, almost like a very powerful marker pen. He walked on, through it, to the little office at the bottom of Marchmont Buildings and rung the buzzer beside the metal door.

Ray answered it and smiled. He was a portly bloke in his forties, not especially well suited to the warden’s uniform of scarlet polo shirt and black combat trousers. The room smelt infinitely better than the street, slightly electrical and slightly of old socks.

“You Mr. Potter from the Home Office?”

“Yes,” said Harry, “please call me Harry. Thank you very much for taking the time to talk to me.”

“No problem,” said Ray, ushering him down a narrow flight of stairs to the basement. “We like having visitors, don’t we Alex?”

Alex was a younger man, lounging on a stool, with a half drunk cup of tea at one elbow.

“This is Alex,” said Ray, “duty spare today. No we don’t get many visitors down in the basement. Tea?”

Harry nodded, somewhat overawed by the number of television screens in one room. There must have been fifty screens in there. It made him feel uncomfortable. He stared at the banks of monitors, all showing men loitering, shop fronts, buses leaving and departing. Alex handed him a mug of tea and pushed over a packet of biscuits.

“We can follow a suspect all the way to Camden town if we need to.”

On the walls, pictures of suspects looked down, men with drawn faces, cut lips, scars, thin women with ratty hair and dead eyes. Writing beneath them said they were pimps, dealers, prostitutes, muggers and thieves. He scanned the walls and there was Malfoy, barely recognisable in the grainy grey security footage of him lurking outside of Leicester square, High Risk Misper in red writing beneath it. That’s the reason Harry had given for his interest. He’d persuaded Arthur to generate a report. Harry was from the Home Office now; nobody was going to doubt his word.

“Look at this,” they flicked the camera on to an attractive young black woman with a brightly coloured shopping bag walking down Marchmont Street. Ray, the CCTV operator flicked a few switches and the screen homed in on her, until she moved across into the next screen, pulling a travelcard out of her pocket, running across another screen to the bus stop on Euston Road.

“Very clever,” said Harry, feeling slightly creepy. He wondered if they did anything other than chase pretty ladies. “What did you suspect her of?”

Ray looked at him.

“It was just a demonstration.”

“You said you thought you had footage of the Misper.”

“Oh Blondie B? Blowjob Blondie? Yes we got that. It’s getting a bit old to tell you the truth, and we’re sick of getting calls about him from the Tax Department. Does it right in the alley behind the offices. Don’t worry, we’ll spare you that. We’re doing an ASBO file on him right now. Do you want to see the shots?”

“When’s the most recent?”

“This one, that’s two days ago.” Alex, the other warden in the bunker flicked through some saved shots. There was a blond head in the blur, the camera stalled, then moved in.

“That’s not him,” said Harry.

“That is him,” said Ray. “The coat’s the same.”

Harry stared at the screen. The blonde man, who until then had kept his head down suddenly turned and looked up at the camera. His face had fallen in on itself; he had the pinched, sunken cheeks of the elderly. There was bruising round his left eye and down the side of his face and sparse dirty blonde stubble around his jaw. He was standing, swaying slightly, smoking a cigarette with a sore of some kind on his left hand larger than a two pound coin. He sneered into the camera. And what the fuck do you want? His look said.

“He doesn’t want help, he doesn’t want anything except his drugs,” said Ray. “Look at this, this is the outreach team trying to talk to him, you can pretty much guess what he’s saying. Then he spits in that guys face. There’s just no helping some people. If it was me I’d have decked him.” The screen flickered again, one long litany, Malfoy in a doorway on Judd Street with his trousers open, sticking a needle into the hollow inside his bony hip. Malfoy sitting on the Swinton Street steps, looking exhausted. Malfoy disappearing with a man down York Way.

“That was a punter and that was 9.30 in the morning,” said Alex.

“Can you find him today?” said Harry. “You see, he’s not just a missing person, he’s also wanted for questioning over a very high level crime.”

“We could find him in half an hour,” said Ray. “He’s in the squat on Gray’s Inn Road, Carrie told me. We don’t go in there except with the police. You’d never seen such a mess, filth and needles everywhere. He’s been in there since Matt and Tibo threw him out of the Stanley Buildings bin sheds. Not that there seems much point now they’re emptying those flats out.”

Harry lost half of his chocolate digestive into his mug of tea.

“Why they’re emptying the flats?”

“For the High speed rail link, they’re going to demolish everything round the back of King’s Cross station, raise it to the ground and regenerate it. They say it’ll be quite something when it’s finished, but it’s going to be ten years of living in a building site until it’s done. I can get you a spoon if you like.”

“Thanks,” said Harry.

“Do you think he’ll want to speak to you?” asked Alex as Harry fished the biscuit out of his mug.

“I don’t know. It’s the best lead we’ve got. It seems worth a try.”

Alex radioed all wardens to be on the lookout for Blondie B, as there was a man from the Home Office who wanted to talk to him. Do not approach, he said. Locate suspect and report back.

Harry had three more cups of tea but there were no further sightings of Malfoy that day. He left his phone number and walked back towards the station. For a moment, he thought of heading down through Bloomsbury towards Russell Square tube, but he squared his shoulders and walked into the drizzle. He kept his eyes fixed on the glow of the station up ahead shining through the orange brown murk of a London night.

“You want business?”

The directness shocked him and made him feel somehow unwashed. He looked up at her, saw the same sunken face, the same exhausted eyes, but the girl had high heeled shoes on, emphasising the skeletal skinniness of her legs. She focused on him with some effort. What are you asking me for? he thought. He shook his head and hurried on. Do I _look_ like I want business? He wondered who would.

You did, said a voice in his head. You did when you thought a fuck on flannelette sheets was enough to save someone. Maybe that’s what every punter thinks. Harry shivered to think of himself as a punter. I didn’t pay him, he told the voice. No, you didn’t even have the decency to do that, it replied.

He crossed the road. A newspaper stall was selling the West End final of the Evening Standard, right on the paving slabs, in the middle of all this chaos. For the first time in his life, he felt truly, unbelievably, out of his depth. He was used to evil perpetrated by people, people with names and faces, people who could be fought, no matter how unlikely the odds. This was an evil that just seemed to exist, to hang static in the air. One could not fight a miasma. He walked on to the yellow lights of the underground station.

There was a girl lying against the glass front of the station, spidery legs spread, a can of drink spilling over the paving slabs beside her. She looked like she’d passed out or fallen asleep. He wondered who would come to her and tell her she wasn’t dead.

~*~

He left his phone number; he rang back the following day thinking they might have forgotten. They hadn’t forgotten. Blondie B hadn’t been seen. A week passed and the phone didn’t ring. A week later he called into the control room again. Malfoy had completely vanished from Kings Cross.


	6. Chapter 6

  
**City Roads, London, December 12th 2001**   


  
They gave him green juice although he never knew how much was in it and it didn’t work. They took a picture of his face and he didn’t want to see it. Just give yourself a break, they said. It doesn’t have to be forever they said. They didn’t know shit. The only point to being here was so he didn’t have to go back. They talked about harm reduction and he stared at them. The extra money had always been more important than some muggle concept of squiggly creatures in the blood. He’d never been able to protect himself.

What had he hissed at Snape in that empty classroom? ‘Like any of us need protection.’ He’d said as much many times since, backed up against the railway arches, just as angry and proud. Snape had always said he’d had no imagination. Snape was dead. Fewer and fewer punters wanted to dish out the extra ten quid these days, not since he got to Kings Cross.

Draco’s nose was running constantly, sniffing echoed in his head and the tip of his nose was burning from being constantly wiped. His eyelids scratched across his eyes when he blinked. He hadn’t slept for three days; he probably wouldn’t for another week. There was no picture in his head of what sleep would feel like; no image of how to get through this but Draco knew he would. Sickness and exhaustion were all part of the process and he was sticking with it. You could trust the pain to teach you far more than you could trust the words. Tara was the last person Draco had spoken to and she left six months ago, everything else had been mumbled lines to raise or score. Six months of knowing nothing but the sensations of extremis in his flesh. Pain kept you focused but words could make you spiral. His back ached. He couldn’t imagine ever sleeping again.

He didn’t speak to the other residents. One of the women he knew from the station. She kept quiet too. They never looked at each other. He was very, very clumsy and kept forgetting things. The other residents were always showing off their muggle living skills like performing Crups but Draco had no idea how a remote control worked or why anybody would want to flick through the animated scenes of muggle monotony that the black box spewed forth when so persuaded. If he survived this transition that was what was waiting for him on the other side. There was nothing about the world outside that cheered him, but he knew he wasn’t going to go back.

Everyone was supposed to use words in group so he did, short perfunctory answers. The other men bragged about dealing drugs and robbing houses and Draco thought yeah, yeah I used to be a Death Eater. He wouldn’t tell them he had been a prostitute. He couldn’t tell them he’d been a wizard. He had nothing to say. The others thought he was stuck up. Twenty points to the Muggles for being so fucking observant, he thought.

Nothing made time go faster. The clock in the lounge was the focus of his day, watching the second hand rotate and rotate again, waiting for half nine in the morning when they gave out the bitter medicine that didn’t work but took the edge off for a few hours. He wished they’d let him take it at nights, he might have dozed then for half an hour or so, but they told him he needed to learn to fall asleep naturally. There were no metal knives in the residents’ kitchen and the cups were melamine. There was nothing you could smash or break to escape from this. Since leaving the West End there had been no days or nights, just the arbitrary presence or absence of light. Now he was back in time again and it was tearing a chunk out of him for running away.

“I hope this isn’t triggering for anyone, because I do think it’s important.”

He looked up. He’d been lying on the floor, there were rules against that. Luna Lovegood was putting up a Christmas tree. He assumed he was hallucinating from lack of sleep.

“You shouldn’t really be on the carpet Draco.”

“Actually Loony, if you mean by “triggering” does it make me want to die with memories of what a disgusting person I am, then yes it’s pretty triggering.”

“Oh,” she said, “That’s a pity. Some of these decorations really are very pretty.”

Draco rolled onto his side and looked at the boxes, bronze and blue gossamer, ethereal and weightless. White lights. All very tasteful and wintry in a way that was neither the manor’s intimidating opulence or the naked strings of coloured lights in the windows of the Somers Town council blocks. They weren’t very triggering at all really and even if they were they’d be totally wasted on him who still felt as numb as a paving slab. He was hurting and irritable and he saw no reason to be nice. None of the decorations were made of glass.

He pushed himself upright. Someone was clawing away in his stomach; sitting upright the cramps were almost unbearable. Sweat ran from under his hair in a steady river and he shook all over, jerkily and repetitively.

“They’re a bit-,” he struggled for the word. He’d had much fewer words in his head recently. He looked at the frosty whites and blues. “A bit – Ravenclaw aren’t they?”

“You know,” she said, “it’s nice to meet someone from Hogwarts to remind me that it wasn’t all a dream. Could you help me put some of these on the tree? You’re taller than I am and I can’t reach the higher branches.”

“I know you’re famous for being oblivious, but let me fill you in. If I move too quickly I’m going to vomit or shit myself, my stomach feels like I’ve just drunk stinksap and my bones feel like they are burning through my skin. Also, the last time we spent Christmas together, you were in my dungeons and I was torturing you on a nightly basis, so don’t go pretending we were some kind of cosy school chums, Loony.”

“Yes, but everybody knew you hated doing that. You used to look terrified.”

“I still did it. I still hurt people. You lot wouldn’t have done that. I was a Death Eater. Which for your information, Loony means I’m a cut above the other petty thieves and beg-for a bag losers here.” He scowled.

“In what way?” Her eyes were still too big. Big bug eyed Loony Lovegood was trying to sort out his world. He was doomed.

“I’ve killed people.” The jolt of confessing something big enough to account for all this sent a thrill through him. At last he had a story that made sense. It was like flying, in the emptiness this feeling of having a reason. “I’m a killer. That’s not really one for a behaviours and consequences sheet.”

“Alright,” she said brightly, “So are you going to help me decorate this tree?”

He wanted to say no, but then noticed something strange. Without his eyes on it, the minute hand on the common room clock had advanced seven minutes. He hadn’t noticed one of them pass. It hurt to stand up, his knees were weak and twitchy and he felt a surge of nausea at being at such a great distance from the floor. He swallowed hard and tried to get used to it. Lovegood handed him some glittery snowflakes. Some of the glitter came off on his fingers.

“You can’t talk about it, can you?” he said after a while. “The past I mean, everyone would just think you’re mad. I suppose that’s hardly your biggest concern is it? Everyone’s thought you were mad since you were eleven and I don’t suppose much has changed. But if you think when they ask in group, so why you a junkie Draco, I’m going to say: ‘oh you know, it’s because the dark lord and all his minions moved into my house when I was seventeen and made me torture detox nurses in my wine cellar’ you have another thing coming.” He paused, Luna handed him the end of the string of fairy lights, a line of delicate frosted stars, another imitation of what had gone from the world. Some might say this makes us quits Lovegood, he nearly added.

“We don’t call you junkies.”

“Whatever you call us. Whatever the nice middle class term for it is. I don’t know why you bother. Nobody in that group is middle class, especially not me.”

“I sometimes think it helps knowing what it’s like to pretend your past doesn’t exist. And I’m not a nurse, Draco.”

“Oh come on, it’s all about the past isn’t it? It’s always the same monotonous sob stories about Daddy battering them and Mummy’s lover touching them up and being a bit poor and a bit slow at school. It’s like fucking Professor Binns all over again. Well I was top of my class in school and a Quidditch champion and Daddy could have bought every one of you bastards here. I chose this life.”

“Your mother’s been looking for you.”

Draco was trying to tie a bow in some kind of aesthetic fashion around the top branch and failing miserably. His fingers felt twice their normal size and were so ugly he couldn’t look at them. He was glad of the bandage obscuring his left hand.

“What here?”

“No. She asked my father to put an ad in the Quibbler. She always does, every month. Most people think you’re dead.”

“Potter doesn’t.”

She looked at him.

“I don’t think Harry’s ever mentioned you.”

“Do you still see him?” There was an unexpected twinge of feeling, of - Potter could have let my mother know. He could have spared her the gory details, but he could have let her know. He couldn’t remember how long ago it was when he’d last seen Potter. A year ago? It hadn’t been much before he was kicked out of the room in Moor Street. The first time he’d gone over. Perhaps Potter had assumed he was dead. People don’t die that easily, he of all people should have known that.

“He got me a placement here.”

Draco blinked. The wizarding world was still beholden to the chosen one it would seem.

“How did he manage that?”

“Oh he’s an Integration Officer. Actually, he kind of set it up, well along with Arthur Weasley. You know, helping wizards integrate in Muggle society.”

“Interesting.”

Probably meant Potter definitely shouldn’t have been poking his poorly integrated arse. Luna handed him a star and he fixed it on top of the tree. She smiled.

“Thank you Draco. It looks lovely. Can I make you a cup of tea for your hard work?”

“You’re telling me Loony Lovegood can work a kettle?”

“They’re quite simple devices when you get used to them.”

He wondered briefly if her obliviousness was defence or antagonism. For a minute, he wanted to apologise. For another split-second he wanted to tell her about Kings Cross, the werewolves, about holding a wand to a Muggle’s throat around the back of Goods Way, about the day magic failed, all of it. He was struck by the same soul spilling weakness as he had the day Potter had been in his body, and this time all it took was a proffered cup of tea. He was getting easy.

He followed Lovegood into the kitchen where she was indeed operating the kettle without any flashes or bangs.

“Can you make me a hot chocolate?” He shrugged. “I can’t drink tea.”

~*~

  
 **  
London Underground, 30th December 2001   
**

Draco had almost no belongings; he had been escorted out by Luna one day last week, just after he started sleeping again, and he’d bought a long warm coat with a comfortingly furry collar from one of the second-hand shops on Upper Street. Luna was alright, she kept quiet and he didn’t have to explain to her why he wouldn’t wear jeans. They found him a rucksack from somewhere to put his new clothes and his meds in and then they let him go.

He had never travelled by tube before. He found it claustrophobic and it left an unpleasant metallic taste in his mouth. Getting down to the Northern Line was like travelling to the centre of the earth. The escalators seemed to run on forever. People knocked against him and it made his eyes water. Too much made his eyes water. His current state was one of being perpetually on the brink of snivelling. It disgusted him.

Eventually, he got to the platform and got onto a train. He was momentarily stunned by the horror of the colours, a snotty fluorescent yellow against a black and grey check. He didn’t know why muggles had to make the world so ugly. The carriage was mercifully empty, there seemed to be only three other people there. He sat down and pulled his bag onto his lap, holding it inwards to his chest. The train advised him to mind the closing doors. He wondered at the stupidity of muggles in having to be instructed in such a simple task as catching a train. The train droned on, a female voice, falsely cheerful like the one on the tapes they used to play after dinner. She needed hideous chanting and echoing music behind her.

After five minutes of staring at dancing black piping on the tunnel the train announced:

“The next station is King’s Cross Saint Pancras.”

He shut his eyes. He knew he couldn’t see it. He knew it would be bad enough when the carriage doors opened, there would be a whirr and a rush of hot underground air and for two minutes there would be no barrier between him and Kings Cross. There was a choking sensation building in his throat and cold sweat prickling on his scalp. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter and tried to get his breathing calm. He had never been able to at City Roads and he couldn’t do it now. He started coughing, fighting to keep his eyes shut. He couldn’t bear the thought that he might look up and see it, the white words on the blue and it would become real again.

The train sat there for far too long. More people squeezed on, he felt the carriage fill, the heavy sensation on his chest and tensing under his skin that told him others were getting too close. Eventually there was a beep and a whirring noise and the train was moving again. Draco kept his eyes closed and felt the hot prickle at their corners that told him the tears had started. He buried his face in his bag, sobbing uncontrollably on a train full of muggles.

The next thing he knew someone was pulling at his sleeve. He looked up groggily. The white letters through the tube window said Morden.

“Get up,” said the guard.

Draco still felt quite shaky. He had no idea how he’s got here, he guessed he must have fallen asleep or passed out. He wasn’t sure if he could stand up yet.

“Do you have a ticket?” said the guard. He was a wizened little man with thick steel rimmed glasses. Draco had bad memories of glasses like that. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a pink piece of cardboard.

“That’s not valid here.”

Draco continued to stare at him. Words were a very long way away. The guard reached forward and took the ticket out of Draco’s hand and tore it in half. He felt a lot of fear as he knew he needed the ticket to work the gates. He still couldn’t speak.

“You need to give me your name and address and come upstairs to speak to the revenue inspector.” Draco looked at him. The guard shook him. “Do you speak English?”

Slowly Draco got up and left the carriage. He realised he had no intention of following the guard at all. The smaller man walked behind him, huffing and puffing but he brushed him off easily and walked across the concourse to the northbound platform. He put his nose in the air and moved like he was striding across the Slytherin dungeons although he felt very dazed and was worried he might pass out again. The other man seemed to have dropped off, so he boarded the waiting train and sat down. The noise from the train gently undulated, sometimes whirring loudly, at other times shuddering into silence. After a while he rummaged in his bag for something to do with his hands. He realised he’d left the key to his room in City Roads in there, not that keys meant anything as the staff had the master set and if you were late for breakfast they let you know about it.

There were ticket inspectors gliding down on the mechanical staircase. He looked at the dull gold key, running his fingers over the sharp periphery edges, counting the ridges on the blade and noting a small chip of light blue paint on the round bow. There was some memory of doing this with Luna, he wasn’t sure why, he wasn’t sure why they did half the things they did there. He surmised the muggle world must be one of nearly constant pain and fear, forever kept at bay by inexplicable and ineffective ritual. He stroked they key with his finger, pushing the pad of his thumb into the little round hole. For some reason his memory seemed very brilliantly lit.

He was aware of the ticket inspectors waiting by the headwall while he was doing this, a huddle of black uniforms. He didn’t pay them much mind until he remembered he didn’t have a ticket. They started to move up the platform towards him as if they had read his thoughts. The train’s noises smoothed into a low metallic purr. Draco’s heart started beating too fast and his throat was tightening, stopping him from breathing. The inspectors were midway down the platform. He found himself standing up, waiting to run as they edged towards his carriage. He slung his bag on his shoulder waiting to move when the train crisply instructed him to Mind the Gap, beeped loudly and closed the doors.

~*~

Draco was out of breath by the time he got to the chipped marble steps. He climbed up and found the small white box with a circle in it that he knew was a muggle doorbell. After a few moments the shiny black door opened and Draco’s breath was knocked out of him completely. He instinctively took a step back and braced himself to run.

“Come in Draco,” said Bella in a gentle voice he had never heard her use before. “Your mother’s waiting for you in the kitchen.”

She smiled at him. He wanted to be sick. Bella clicked her tongue.

“I’m Andromeda Draco, Andromeda Tonks.” He watched her, noticing the dark, hooded eyes registering the panic slipping out of him. He didn’t like that she had seen that. “Please do come in.”

He contemplated running but realised without the fear he didn’t have the strength so he followed her down the dingy corridor that lead to the kitchen. It was lighter in there; some wintry sunshine crept in from a small square garden overgrown with weeds. His mother was sitting at the kitchen table cradling a mug in her well-kept hands. She looked up at him:

“We were expecting you earlier.”

“I got lost.”

She was still looking up at him with that look of fear on his face he remembered. Here we go again, thought Draco, she thinks I’ve used. I’ve been out three hours and already she thinks I’ve gone to score. He tightened his fingers around the strap of his bag and sat down opposite her.

“Look at my eyes,” he said.

“They’re very red,” she said.

“Yes,” said Draco, “but look at the pupils.”

He tilted his head back and opened his eyes wide so she could see properly.

“Just what am I looking for Draco? Your pupils look perfectly normal.”

He nodded.

“They are. I got lost. I’ve never used the tube before.” He put his head down so he was no longer looking into his mother’s face. “If I’d have taken something on my way home my pupils would be tiny, like little pinpricks. If I use, you’ll be able to see it in my eyes.”

“Do you want some tea, Draco?” asked Andromeda.

He searched in his rucksack for the peppermint teabags he had bought with Luna. He fished them out and handed them to his Aunt. His mother was staring at the bandage around his hand.

“Can you use these? I’ve gone off real tea, too many bad muggle cups.” Andromeda took the packet off him and smiled. He watched her take the kettle off the range, saw the steam rise from the mug and then smelt the clear scent of peppermint as she handed the scalding hot mug back to him. His mother was still looking at his hand.

“It’s an abscess,” he said finally, “from where I was injecting.”

“You’re not going to make this easy for me are you?” said his mother.

“This isn’t going to be easy,” he replied.

~*~

After lunch they took a cab to Saint Mary’s hospital in Praed Street. He was feeling anxious again, the feeling he remembered from Hogwarts, the dark fear of long afternoons. The atrium to the hospital was bright and airy; you wouldn’t know that it was a hospital if it hadn’t been for all the people in padded chairs with tubes coming out of them. His mother led them along, pushing open wide doors with round windows, following a chaotic maze of corridors gradually getting narrower and a deeper and deeper shade of magnolia. The dust cut into Draco’s lungs.

Eventually they came into small low lit ward and his mother greeted the lady in blue pyjamas with a nod. She smiled back at her and led them to a small darkened room with a glass tank in it. There was another woman in pyjamas leaning over the tank waving something who stood back when she noticed them arrive. The tank emitted a loud wail and Draco realised there was a child in there. The woman made a soothing noise to the baby in the glass.

“Ssh, Ssh, you were so good today and now grandmother’s here. Are you going to be good for grandma?”

“It’s alright Stacey,” said his mother. “I can take over from here.”

Draco watched her pick the child up and bounce it slightly. It looked very incongruous in its white shawl against her neatly tailored jacket. He saw the nurse stand back and look from his mother to Andromeda and then over to him. He realised he was grasping at the collar of his coat. She looked at the blond hair and the bandage on his hand and then looked away. Draco could taste the Northern Line in his mouth again, the dirty, dusty metallic taste of disgust and shame.

I do not want this, thought Draco. I cannot deal with this.

“Do you want to hold him?”

“No,” said Draco.

Why should I want to do that, thought Draco. Why should anyone think this has got anything to do with me? Why can’t they just give it away to someone who can look after it? Do you think I’m proud I got so fucking wasted I didn’t know who I was fucking?

“Where’s Tara?” said Draco. If you can find her, he thought, I want to score off her.

“She ran away,” said Andromeda. “When the social worker told her your mother was legal guardian, she left.”

Draco looked at the floor. He felt very dizzy. Gold flecks were beginning to accumulate at the centre of his eyes. His mother was still bouncing the baby. It had stopped the wailing noise. She flicked her hand through the sparse blond hair on its big flat head and smiled at it. The child turned its face away and looked directly at him.

He felt nothing at all.

~*~

Andromeda had brought him some barley water after she heard him being sick in the downstairs toilet. He squatted for a moment, sipping it, tasting the salty tears in the sweet water. She took his arm gently and lifted him up, handing him some tissues. He blew the snot and the vomit out of his nose and grimaced. There was a fresh eruption of tears.

“It’s alright,” he said. “I’m sick a lot.”

“It’s been a long day,” said his Aunt. “I think you need to lie down.”

He didn’t answer but he let her guide him up the stairs by his elbow. He had to keep his eyes shut to concentrate on staying conscious. When he opened his eyes he was in a soothing green room with a large silver bed. He sat down on the bed and kicked his shoes off. The room was spinning like he was drunk.

“Goodnight Draco,” said his aunt from a long way above him.

“Goodnight,” he mumbled and fell fast asleep.

~*~

  
  
**Malfoy Manor, Wiltshire, May 1st 2002**   


Draco was feeling very speedy. He checked his eyes every morning in the bathroom mirror and expected to find them blown wide, but every day they looked normal. He had told the doctor, the one who came to the Manor every Friday morning that the tablets made him feel weird, but he just smiled at him, said how much better he was looking and wrote him a prescription for another month’s worth.

In the hallway, people were smiling at him too. He looked up and nodded, realising they were expecting to be acknowledged back. He remembered their names and spoke to them. People had started to mumble things like ‘not such a bad kid’ behind his back. He found he didn’t mind.

He supposed he was feeling better. He was feeling something after all, even if it was a peculiar mix of restlessness and exhaustion. He still didn’t like staying in the house, so he had developed a habit of taking himself off for long walks through the beech woods and out onto the low grassy hills that surrounded the Manor. The trees had been bare when he first started coming up here, great black stumps rising out of the bare earth like the old stones. In the month he had been escaping they had come into leaf, a light fragile green against the wispy spring sky. Draco Malfoy was wandering in awe at leaves and skies, he thought, anything was possible.

He didn’t mind Scops so much now either. He was still completely perplexed as to how the hell the thing had got here, but he could help his mother feed him and change him without flinching away in disgust. It wasn’t like disputing it would get him very far either; everyone said the thing was the spitting image of him. He couldn’t see it himself. It wasn’t so bad. The Manor was a bit of a refuge for unemployed house elves and they helped out. One of them had obviously been a nursery elf at some point and seemed to quite enjoy it. Sometimes he had the uncomfortable feeling Scops liked him. He saw no reason why he should.

The problem was he always wanted to be moving even when he ached with tiredness. He had very vivid dreams, not the nightmares he had had when he first came to the Manor, just very busy dreams. Sometimes his nights were so hectic it was no wonder he always felt like he needed more sleep. Sometimes his pupils felt so dilated they ached but his eyes always looked perfectly normal. The doctor had said there was nothing on information sheet to suggest ‘feeling like I’ve just shot two grams of really dirty cheap amphetamine’ was a known side effect. He seemed to consider that decisive.

He got to the ridge were the old warning signs were. The Ministry had put them there after one too many muggles disappeared wandering about near the Manor. ‘Does anyone in your family have mental health problems, Draco?’ The cheery assessor from city roads had popped into his head. He looked at the sign. M.O.D. WARNING TO PUBLIC its faded letters said. The middle had been scratched away by rain and time, but its final warning stood proud. DO NOT TOUCH IT. IT MAY EXPLODE. ‘No,’ he had replied, because how could you explain? We’re all muggles now.

Draco lay down in the long grass at the top of the hill amid strange spiky flowers and buzzing insects and for a moment nearly slept again. He felt the sun creep across his face and idly ran his hand over his stomach, itchy and sore with the puncture marks from the weekly shots he had to give himself. With one-use retracting needles, he thought, just in case the temptation gets too much and I have the unconquerable urge to bang up mother’s Eau de Parfum. He rolled on his side, looking down at the toy Manor with the shiny boxes of cars parked around it glittering on this spring morning. Harry Potter kept writing to him to say he wanted to talk. He kept getting his mother to write back with all her wit and charm to tell him to get stuffed. Potter probably just wanted in on the miracle of the reformed junkie junior Death Eater. He snorted and disturbed a bluebottle flying too close to his nose.

The Ministry had originally planned to sell the Manor but apparently some bespectacled cousin of Molly Weasley had shown up and made multi-coloured lines bounce around on a screen and emitted rumblings about market forces and equity. Nobody had really understood, but on his advice the Ministry had kept the Manor and turned it into flats for Wizarding families in distress. His mother had lingered on, welcoming new arrivals with icy grace. The residents seemed to find her lady of the manor act quite inspirational for all she was really confined to a small suite of rooms in the east wing.

And Draco, lying in the long grass, liked it that way. He liked the demolition, the destruction, he was thrilled that Voldemort’s throne room was now full of anonymous Daveys and Wilkins, that sticky half blood children wiped their buttery fingers on Aunt Hildegard’s ancient tapestries, that those bloody lethal chandeliers had been sold to muggles in America. He was up on the ridge where the muggles used to come in their pathetic quest for magic and he was almost shaking in delight at the obliteration of his world. Let the ground open, he thought. Let us become another set of submerged bumps in the green grass of Salisbury Plain. It was very grand to think this way. He tasted metal in his mouth. He always had the taste of metal in his mouth. It reminded him of the Northern Line.

He talked to visitors. He talked to the residents. He even talked to his mother. There was suddenly no end to the number of people he could interact with. They all seemed so very pleased to be speaking to him, so very proud of him, so eager to take his arm and touch his shoulder and say softly, if they were brave enough, you’ve done so very well. He talked to the postman when he came to deliver the mail, he talked to Scops when he babbled at him. He went to the kitchen and talked to the house elves admiring the remnants of the family glass and china with them as their busy little hands polished the last of the family silver and sharpened the ancient goblin engineered carving knives.

Draco rolled over, arched his back to get comfortable and let the sun shine down. Everything was precious because everything was transitory. He smiled into the warmth. He was at peace although he would need to get up and walk again in a few minutes and his eyes felt very wide.

 **  
Grimauld Place, Chelsea, London 26th May 2002   
**

  
Draco held the warm white mug tightly in his hands, breathing in the peppermint.

“Just my luck,” he said. “I thought I was becoming a decent human being.” He swallowed a mouthful of scalding tea. “Turns out I was just off my face again.”

Andromeda smiled gently. He could never get used to seeing her smile without a sliver of fear running down his back.

“So you ran away to London,” she said.

“Yeah,” Draco shrugged. Scops gurgled from his pushchair. He put his mug down on the table and grabbed at the child’s feet with the two fingers on his left hand that still took commands from him.

“With a five month old baby you don’t have legal custody of.”

“Mother won’t report me.”

“She may have no choice. There’s a lot of muggles involved and with no offence to my late husband’s family, muggles really do love to stick their noses in.”

Draco had been clumsily unstrapping Scops while she spoke to him. The damned buckles were hell to work with only one and a half functioning hands. He pulled the child onto his lap; it was surprisingly heavy and surprisingly warm. He felt his breathing abruptly slow down.

“I had to take Scops,” he said, “If I’d just come alone, you know where I’d have gone.”

He shrugged again. The child gurgled at the movement.

“They want to lock me up, I don’t know, some muggle Ward 49.”

“What makes you say that?”

He looked at the table.

“Well there was some sort of muggle mind healer coming out to see me and I didn’t like the sound of it one bit.”

“That doesn’t mean they were going to lock you up.”

Draco scowled and picked up his mug again.

“It’s horrible there, everybody looking at me like I’m some kind of psycho.”

“I have no idea how that feels,” Andromeda remarked dryly.

“What?” said Draco.

“Do you know how many times I’ve been handed in to the Ministry?” She paused. “I’ll speak to my sister. Let her know you’re here. Aside from anything else, she must be going out of her mind with worry. I’m pretty sure she’ll already have called the police.”

“What do you think they’ll do?”

Draco was distracted by the sound of the front door opening. He thought he heard another child calling out and a man’s voice shouting after him. Andromeda stiffened. The kitchen door burst open and a sandy haired child burst cheerily into the kitchen, nearly colliding with Scops buggy.

“Who is that?” said the child smartly. Draco slowly looked from the child to the man standing behind him. It was Harry Potter.


	7. Chapter 7

**Borough High Street, London, Friday 7th June 2002.**

Hermione was looking rather damp. Gazing round the table, Harry realised they all were. Ron lifted up his t-shirt to wipe the sweat off his face, giving everyone a flash of off-white torso. Hermione shot a brief look of - what the hell in his direction then carried on:  


“Any further matters before we move on to the progress reports to date?”  


“Can we open a window?” said Dean.  


“They don’t open,” said Neville, wiping his own soggy forehead with his sleeve. Harry and I tried last year.”  


“God, we’re shit without magic,” replied Dean.  


Harry found that comment unexpectedly hit home. It was a rather traitorous thought for the Regional Lead Transition and Integration Officer, but there it was suddenly stuck in his head. He remembered the banners Dean had done for Quidditch matches. He imagined the words as a red and gold flag slung across his desk. “We Are Shit Without MAGIC!” You couldn’t say that though. Perhaps denying the bleeding obvious was the primary function of all government ministries, magical or otherwise.  


“And now the interim reports. Neville would you like to start?  


“Not much to say really. I met Ginny out in Albania – she says Hi by the way, and we spent three days combing through those woods. There was nothing that gave any hint of traces of magic.”  


“Are you sure you looked everywhere? You know that glade I e-mailed you about?”  


“The one where Betha Jorkins went missing? If you don’t believe me Harry, ask Ginny. We spent twelve hours there and unless you count some very good examples of _Selaginella Denticulata_ , we turned up nothing.”  


“Thank you Neville. Luna new reports?”  


Luna was cooling herself with a small plastic bee that sent its wings spinning like a fan when she pressed a red button on its back. It made a rather ominous humming sound.  


“Death, Destruction and Despair.” She stopped and her hand-held bee gave another whirr.  


“Do you have any more positive contributions?”  


“I asked my father,” said Luna, “and that’s what he said the key components of a Carnifex Mundi hex were.”  


Hermione run her hand up into her hair. Ron scowled:  


“Just what every witch or wizard’s got on their store-room shelf.”  


“Lord Voldemort was hardly any witch or wizard, Ronald. Thank you Luna, that’s very helpful. Ron?”  


“You live with me ‘Mione, you know what I’ve been up to.”  


“For the benefit of the other committee members,” said Hermione in exasperation. Luna’s bee was starting to get on Harry’s nerves. The inside of his jeans were like a Weasley porta-swamp. It was not a pleasant sensation.  


“I have been crawling around some rubbish bins at the back of Leicester Square tube station with Harry. I have nothing further to report.”  


“Thank you Ron. Dean?”  


“Sorry, I’ve been off to visit Seamus. His mum’s still very bad.”  


“I’m afraid my time has been taken up with exams this month,” said Hermione. “Thank you to everyone who has carried out search operations so far. I know the results have been disappointing to date, but it’s the committee mission to Hogwarts next month. That really could turn up something useful for us.”  


“Always has before,” said Ron. “And it’s like Harry said, Voldemort had a connection to the place. If he left any clues at all, you can bet he would have left them there.”  


Harry looked around the table. The others looked more stupefied than optimistic, but it might just be the heat. Harry watched a bead of sweat drip off the edge of Dean’s nose.  


“So that just about wraps it up. Is there any other business before the meeting concludes?”  


“Malfoy’s turned up,” said Harry.  


“What?” said Dean and Ron together. Hermione gave what sounded like a grunt of irritation. Harry hoped it was directed at Ron and Dean.  


“How nice,” said Luna.  


“Does he know anything?” said Ron.  


“Dunno, haven’t asked him.”  


“Well you have a task for the next meeting, then” said Hermione.  


~*~

  


**12 Grimauld Place, Chelsea, London, 23rd June 2002**   


Harry stared at Malfoy. He still had his coat on, even though the summer afternoon was enough to make Harry’s t-shirt stick to him after ten minutes of running after Teddy. It was one of those long tailored coats that always reminded him slightly of Auror’s robes. He looked quite tough too, in his own skinny way. He was perched on the arm of the broken down old sofa, still pale and not particularly healthy looking, but no longer cadaverous. Malfoy looked away from him and sipped from his drink again. Harry looked at the pale fingers jutting out from the white mug. He had pulled the sleeves of whatever it was he was wearing under the coat down to his knuckles, Harry guessed to hide the remains of that thing he’d seen on the back of his hand.  


He realised Malfoy wouldn’t know that he had seen those pictures and felt a wash of guilt.  


“Are you going to stare all day, Potter?” The voice was as cold and as clipped as it had been when he was a prefect. Despite this he couldn’t quite get the idea out of his head that something about Malfoy had radically changed. Perhaps it was just the weirdness of seeing him with the blond child in his lap.  


“I need to ask you something, Malfoy.”  


“I’ve got a headache,” said Malfoy, taking another mouthful from the mug of black coffee in his hand. Slimy little sod. Harry ignored him.  


“I need to ask you about what you said, about the Carnifex Mundi hex you mentioned -,”  


“You really should learn not to confuse your needs with your urges, Potter.” The child started to grizzle. Malfoy put his mug down on the coffee table and then lazily waved his long pale fingers at it. The child watched the flutterings with huge round eyes, already lightening to a pale grey.  


“People are dying Malfoy. Wizards are dying. If you know anything at all, you need to be working with us.”  


“I told you what I know. I told you what hex the Dark Lord used. I told you I didn’t think you could reverse it. I don’t know any more.” He picked his mug up again, emptied it, and continued. “And for your information Potter, yes I am aware wizards are dying.” He replaced the mug on the table.  


“Now if you will excuse us. Five minutes of conversation with you and the content of Scops’ nappy no longer seems so unappealing.”  


Malfoy pulled the child into his arms and slid to his feet.  


“Wait,” said Harry. Malfoy glared down at him. Harry wondered if he had been that tall when they last met. He felt sweat prickle under his arms, he had no idea how the hell Malfoy was coping in that coat:  


“How –how did that happen anyway?”  


“What?”  


“Scops – your kid, he’s yours isn’t he?”  


Malfoy rested back against the sofa. He looked suddenly diffident.  


“Well, you know how it is: the old families have bred amongst themselves for centuries, by now there are all kinds of mutations in the mix. Then, taking into account the unpredictable state of magic around the millennium and - that certain muggle plants with sedating properties are often key ingredients in fertility potions, one thing rather lead to another.”  


Harry choked on his tea with incredulity. Malfoy was still standing there watching him try not to vomit it back up with an air of mild priggishness that really had no place on the face of a bloke who had just admitted to getting knocked up. Maybe it was something a bit less shocking in the wizarding world.  


He tried to imagine a pregnant Ron. No, it was definitely not something usual, even among purebloods.  
Malfoy let the moment drag on for a little longer than it needed to.  


“Or of course, in the usual manner. And if you don’t know about that yet Potter, I’m really not going to enlighten you.”  


He swung the baby onto his hip and stood up straight again.  


“Wha –“  


“I got a girl pregnant. It happens.”  


“But I thought, I thought -,” Harry was goggling.  


Malfoy looked at him. He had hoped the man, now he was a man, would rather let past indiscretions be, considering the importance of the matter at hand. He’d obviously overestimated him.  


“You thought I might be saving myself for you Potter, after our heart stopping tryst on your living room floor?”  


“I shouldn’t have done that,” said Harry.  


“No, you shouldn’t have.”  


Well, welcome to the moral high ground, thought Harry bitterly. It’s not like we see you up here often. The child was making wordless strings of noises as Malfoy shifted him on his hip. He kept jabbing his fingers into various bits of Malfoy.  


“Are you going to report me?”  


“No point. You’re Harry Potter.”  


“That’s hardly as glowing a reference as it used to be.”  


Malfoy’s left cheek moved upward to cover his eye. He gently moved Scops’ hand away.  


“No, I didn’t mean the boy-who-lived or the chosen one or anything else. I mean you’re Harry Potter, which means you have a staff team that universally adores you, a miraculous way of diverting disasters and the ability to get away with whatever you feel like. Even if I did report you, it wouldn’t do any good.”  


Harry watched him leave and then kicked the sofa hard. Trust Malfoy to turn it around like that. The man had been bullying people since he was eleven years old; there was no way he could win a war of words with the git. Harry sighed, rubbed at his smarting toes and resigned himself to the hopelessness of his mission.  


~*~

  


So it went on, every other Sunday afternoon when he wasn’t away on another wild goose chase with the Extraordinary Committee:  


“What do you know about The Grey Almanac of Sarum, Malfoy?”  


“Never heard of it,” said Malfoy, pushing past him out of the kitchen. He had a piece of toast in his hand; Harry smelt the warm butter as it passed beneath his nose. At least he’s eating something, thought Harry and then chased that thought away. He might spend most of his days worrying about former wizards being warm and well fed enough but he wasn’t turning into Molly Weasley.

~*~

Harry woke unwillingly. It was still dark, and the dark was filled with unnamed failings these days. He still hadn’t completed his report on Transition funding for the audit committee. He doubted the case would be strong enough to keep the money coming in at its current levels. Then there was the Hobbs’ family, evicted by three landlords in over a month for various housekeeping errors. He wondered what Ma Black was doing in Herne Hill before he noticed the red curtains and realised he was in Sirius’ room. Ma Black’s shrieks were higher and wilder than he ever remembered them. He sat up, reconciled himself to needing the toilet, and dragged himself of bed.  


As he left the bathroom, he noticed a figure pacing about in the gloom of the hallway. It was Malfoy, walking up and down, jiggling the wailing little culprit on his shoulder. Even half-asleep he registered the shock; it was like finding Bellatrix Lestrange cuddling a puppy. Maybe a good time to catch him off guard, he thought, and realised he was already halfway downstairs.  


Malfoy was making soft shushing noises into the child’s face. Harry watched his body tense as he registered he was being watched, he saw his shoulders stiffen and his neck snap up:  


“Disturb you did we, Potter?”  


Too late, thought Harry, too late. He registered the coldness in his eyes even through the murk. Too late, he’s already back to being Malfoy.  


“You can’t help being loud can you Scops,” said Harry. The baby wailed at him. “But waking up screaming at three am isn’t one of your more endearing habits.”  


Harry yawned. He really knew the child couldn’t help it, but he couldn’t face days after too little sleep as well as he could in Hogwarts. He had five exceptional cases to review tomorrow and Malfoy’s child was screaming as if he were on fire. He guessed the noise was in for the night.  


“Yes well, we put up with it from you so really Scops is only repaying the favour.”  


Harry hoped to goodness the semi-darkness was hiding the heat that had rushed into his cheeks, but it would be just his luck if Malfoy had developed the ability to see in the dark. The other man wasn’t looking at him; he was still looking down at the child bundled in his arms. Scops had stopped wailing and was now sobbing gently.  


What the hell, thought Harry:  


“What were you doing in the Room of Requirement that day, Malfoy?”  


“The what?”  


He continued to jiggle Scops’ on his chest gently patting at his back. Harry thought he heard the child start to gurgle through the sobs.  


“The Room of Hidden Things.”  


Malfoy turned away from him and headed towards the kitchen.  


“I don’t remember. Probably trying to find some way to get you killed.”  


The heavy wooden door swung shut behind him. Harry held his arms to his sides, resisting the overwhelming urge to batter his fists against it until the burning anger went away.  


~*~

**50 Queen Anne’s Gate, St James’ Park, London, Monday July 15th 2002.**   


That weekend the entire extraordinary committee had been up to Hogwarts. All they found was a dangerous old ruin. They had prepared themselves for how it might look, of course, but seeing it roofless and creaking against the slate grey Scottish sky had been pretty bad for all of them. Even then, they had been buoyed up with a little hope that some echo could be found in the mouldering stones. It was Hogwarts, and there was always help at Hogwarts. Three days of searching amid the shattered remains had disabused them of this notion. They came away with nothing except a vague feeling that Voldemort had managed to alter the weather systems above Northern Scotland. Nobody remembered their school days marred by summers that bad.  


Now he was back behind his desk with a prickling feeling at the back of his throat. He realised even being in a sodden tent out on the Scottish moors was better than being here. It had become harder since his move to the Home Office. He had a better chair and a better work space - open plan with deep pile carpets and tasteful pot plants. There was a sandwich man who called round every lunch time bringing in various concoctions of goats’ cheese and couscous. Harry didn’t have time for lunch most days. He flicked the calendar on his desk and let the pages go into freefall.  


It wasn’t like there were more cases. The numbers had dwindled dramatically in the last year and a half and on the surface of things everything was working well. Nearly half a million wizards had been processed by the transition centres, two hundred thousand had been helped into alternative employment, forty thousand houses had been rebuilt in bricks and mortar, and near enough thirteen thousand wizarding children had passed their Educational Equivalents. By any other standards it was an unqualified success.  


Except it wasn’t a success, not really, not if you went up close and stared at it. Older wizards struggled. There had been the expected suicides of course, and the not so expected ones. Barnabas Cuffe fell into the former, too old to adapt, too used to having status to do anything else. Pansy Parkinson nobody could have predicted. She had been doing well in her Educational Equivalents and helping out in a transition canteen. Her mother still maintained she had always liked walking close to the edges of cliffs and must have slipped. To this day, nobody knew what Lucius had been playing at when he declared siege war on the ministry with whatever failing magic he had to hand.  


But it wasn’t these stories that really got to him. What really made him hurt and angry were the little tales of unknown wizards and witches found frozen or starved in huts and tumbledown cottages. The phone calls he had received from muggles about the creepy old lady who seemed to be living in their garden shed. The days when he turned up too late. The days when he turned up and there was nothing he could do. The lined and sunken faces telling him that there wasn’t anything they wanted.  


It made him angry, and the anger seemed to have nowhere to go. Sometimes he directed it at his boss, a muggle called Hackley, who didn’t know anything and yet talked about bringing in forced integration for the remaining wizards’ own good. Sometimes it was at Arthur, nodding his near bald head in agreement with him. Sometimes it was at the tight lipped young man who flitted along the landings and through the doorways on Sunday afternoons, always saying that there was nothing that he knew, always looking like he was lying.  


Harry felt the back of his neck ache dully. He was going down with a cold and didn’t quite know how he would manage another week of it. It wasn’t just those who wouldn’t integrate. It was the niggling problems with those that did. Wizards didn’t understand the way muggle events sequenced; the cause and effect of the mundane world was lost on them. There were things you could do, of course, and support workers to help, but watching the frustration was sometimes agonising. Pureblood wizards, zapped with potions at the first sniffle in their cribs often had devastatingly low resistance to infections. Then there were all the day to day things, a DWP decree that transitionals were only allowed two years on incapacity benefit, the numerous hippogriffs, house elves, nifflers, crups, grindelows and goodness knows what else to hide, not that he wasn’t doing his bit there. Two weeks after Malfoy had turned up, a neat little house-elf in a pleated skirt and matching blue hat had arrived in a taxi and announced she had been sent by Mistress Narcissa. Kreacher had been combing his ear hair every day since.  


He sniffed and opened a bulky manila envelope. There was a note inside: ‘Found in New Forest 27th June by two dog walkers. Seems like something from your department.’ He unwrapped the little ball swathed in tissue paper. Mad-eye’s eye stared back at him from his hand.

**Grimauld Place, Chelsea, July - November 2002**

Teddy’s voice was making a noise in Harry’s head that caused red flashes to spark across his vision. He knew he couldn’t let his godson down, so he had swallowed somewhere well over the advised dose of garish orange and yellow striped tablets until he felt well enough to move. He had been taking those tablets like Bertie Botts’ beans all week. It didn’t matter, he’d pulled his jeans on and splashed water on his face, and then they had both got the bus down to the new aquarium on the south bank where they goggled at sharks and turtles. Harry had held Teddy’s hand out in the shallow pool to stroke manta rays like fleshy black waggling blankets. They seemed remarkably pleased with the affection, for fish. Harry was reminded of evenings down by Hogwarts’ Lake watching Fred and George tickle the giant squid.  


By the time they were on the bus back to Chelsea, the tablets were well and truly wearing off. His voice had completely gone and the fizzy cola that had been making things bearable by snapping and popping on his sandpaper tonsils was now starting to make him feel sick. He couldn’t wait to get Teddy back so he could go home and maybe drink half a bottle of night nurse to feel some oblivion before he had to get up to go to work again.  


He knew he was kind of stumbling when he got to the door of Number Twelve. He rang the doorbell because he couldn’t see how he would ever get his keys out of his pocket and into the lock.  


Andromeda opened the door, took one look at him and then led him to the staircase to sit down. He felt very woozy and inexplicably relieved to no longer be supporting his own weight.  


“Teddy, go get Draco.” He heard Andromeda say. He felt fingers on his forehead.  


“I’ve just got a bit of a cold,” he croaked. He wasn’t quite sure what relation Andromeda was to him, but Auntie seemed to feel right at the moment. He felt her sharp fingers prodding at the hard lumps on either side of his throat.  


“Draco,” said Andromeda, “Harry here is clearly unwell. Would you help me get him up to the red room?”  


“Sirius’ room,” he slurred.  


“That’s right. Draco, don’t just stand there.”  


He thought he heard Malfoy laugh softly. He felt a hand go to his side and pluck something from his pocket.  


Harry opened his eyes. Malfoy was standing in the hallway holding an empty bright orange and yellow box between his fingers. He realised what was different about him. His hair had changed.  


“How many of these did you take?” Malfoy said softly.  


“They’re just cold tablets,” he mumbled.  


“How many – the whole pack?”  


Harry looked up at him. Since he had been away his hair had got infinitesimally darker, so it was now closer to pale gold than white. It made him look less freakish and slightly more human.  


“’S only sixteen,” he slurred. His head was splitting like in the days of Voldemort. He squeezed his eyes shut.  


“Potter,” sneered Malfoy, “In my expert opinion, I think you’ve OD’d.”

~*~

Harry woke up in the Sirius’ room. His head still hurt, but it was nothing compared to with how much of an idiot he felt. Two days spent at the Chelsea Westminster with a tube sticking out of his arm and a septic throat explaining to anyone who would listen that, no, he wasn’t crying for help or mad, he had just mixed the doses up. He didn’t know anything that came from Boots the chemist at Victoria station could be that deadly. It had been painful and embarrassing and he could really have gone another twenty two years on the planet without ever knowing what a nightmare it was getting to the toilet hooked up to an IV line.  


He turned against the pillow and heard the door creak open. Old locks never seemed to work in former wizarding houses.  


“Evening smackhead,” Malfoy drawled somewhere above him. He seemed to be taking this as a personal victory and was being insufferable. Harry heard the click of a tray being put down on a table. That was odd enough to get his eyes open.  


“For the hundredth time, it was a mistake.” He croaked.  


“Yes well, Dromeda’s having the night off with her sister-in-law and Winky is looking after Scops, so it’s down to me to make sure you don’t kill yourself in the next twelve hours.”  


He sat down on the bed beside Harry. Harry was surprised to feel his legs tingle at the proximity.  


“I wasn’t trying to kill myself.”  


“There, there,” he said, dripping mock-sincerity. He sounded like his father. “If you can manage to resist further martyrdom for ten minutes, I had instructions left to bring you up plenty of fluids.” He lifted a glass filled with cloudy liquid. “Lemonade - the proper stuff, not the hideous muggle thing in cans.”  


Harry pulled himself up against the pillows.  


“Can you please look like you are enjoying this less?”  


Malfoy smirked.  


“No, I really don’t think I can.”  


“Because I’ve got a stinking headache -,”  


“I wasn’t offering -,”  


Harry scowled at him. His throat felt like it was tearing every time he swallowed. He reached out for the glass.  


“I wish you would stop being so smug about this.” It was easier to talk after he had sipped some of the drink.  


“Welcome to my world, Potter.” Malfoy’s voice sounded a little hoarse too. He wondered if he had a lowered pureblood disease resistance, and if so whether it was safe to be here. Harry hit back the only way he knew how.  


"I wish you’d just give over and tell me what it is you know.”  


Malfoy leaned up into his face across the covers. The realisation hit Harry like a bludger.  


“And yeah, you are offering.”  


“Yes,” said Malfoy taking the glass out of his fingers. “I am.”  


The blonde wizard suddenly reached out and started lazily stroking the swollen place at the back of his ear, running gentle fingers up and down the lumps in his neck. It felt so much better than when Andromeda had done it. Malfoy took his time, languorously working his fingers to the back of his neck, soothing the pain away. Harry felt himself sigh and roll onto his back, and still Malfoy’s fingers were underneath him, pushing into the skin at the aching base of his skull.  


“Why - why are you doing this?” he whispered.  


“To shut you up,” said Malfoy.  


He was using both hands now, running his thumb and forefinger along Harry’s neck and dipping insistently beneath the top of his t-shirt, his right hand working powerfully at the knots behind. He didn’t have a headache anymore although his throat was very dry. His hips bucked up involuntarily against the duvet. Malfoy held out the glass of lemonade and he gulped at it gratefully, shutting his eyes and feeling the cool liquid washing away the ripping pain. He opened his eyes again.  


Malfoy was looking down at him watching him drink, grey eyes lazy, thin lips moist, the tip of his sharp tongue just protruding as he reached downwards beneath the covers. There was no question about it, of all the people he had ever fucked Malfoy was the most extreme. He wasn’t as pretty as Ginny, wasn’t as built as some of the guys he’d been with that mad summer, but he was shockingly unique.  


No one looked like him. No one knew how to make Harry need like him. He was so cold, so vicious, so eerily lovely and it got Harry so hard he hurt. He clattered the empty glass down on the bedside cabinet, not caring as he heard it thud to the floor.  


“Wah?” he said “What the hell’s that?”  


Malfoy’s hands, at least, he assumed they were Malfoy’s hands but they felt strange and smooth and inhuman hooked around the waistband of his pyjamas and ripped them down to his knees. Without preamble a cold, glidingly moist hand was fisting at the head of his cock.  


“Gloves, Potter. Latex gloves. I stole them from the hospital.”  


Harry grunted his approval. When he could get his mind back he added: “You still steal things?”  


“Only when they’re useful.”  


A silky latex-sheathed finger was beginning to explore his arsehole. Malfoy watched him thrash his head and blink, looking down on him with that precious half-smile.  


“You see,” he said languidly, “The term pureblood is no longer strictly appropriate for me.”  


Harry thrust up into Malfoy’s fist and wondered what he was blathering on about. He watched the other wizard read the confusion on his face with a sneer. He felt Malfoy’s finger broach him roughly, twisting, like his lips twisted up into his face.  


“I used to shoot drugs, I used to sell sex, and I really didn’t give a blue pixie’s arse about protection.”  


“My god, Malfoy, you’ve got – you’re not telling me you’ve got AIDS?”  


“No,” he said. “Hep B and Hep C. Not so dramatic but much more infectious.”  


“Is that – is that bad?” gasped Harry. He had never really heard of them.  


“It’s not good,” said Malfoy, his voice as smooth as the finger inside him. “So when I fuck you and I am going to fuck you hard and long right down into the bed frame, we’re going to have to be careful, alright?”  


Harry nodded, grimacing against the pillows. Malfoy had stopped touching him, he whimpered in protest before hearing the sound of a zip being lowered, and the rustle of clothing being pushed down. He realised he was stroking himself, slowly, just to keep things ticking over. His cock was slick from the gloves, his hand moved easily over the head, rolling the foreskin unhurriedly, like he could imagine Malfoy would wank. That was an image. Malfoy held a small blue packet up in front of Harry’s face and Harry tore the corner off with his teeth, desperate to get this started. There was a pause then the other man slipped under the covers behind him. He felt two thumbs spreading his cheeks wide and moaned into the burn of being opened and the stabbing burst of need flooding through his belly.  


Malfoy was nipping at his neck as he fucked him, but Harry had stopped feeling pain there long ago. He had forgotten how good sex felt, how it took away everything, sent his mind on a holiday while his flesh screamed out with desire. Malfoy was taking him slowly but deeply while he wanked himself, the perfect comfort fuck. Behind him, Malfoy had lost control of his breathing; he could hear him panting a little at each thrust. Harry decided he was a really good shag. He had a dizzy, flighty urge to tell Malfoy how much he loved having his cock inside him when the other man flipped him over onto his front and really got down to business.  


Hands dug into Harry’s hips as Malfoy clung on for purchase, his balls slapping against his arse, Oh God this is the bit where it gets good, thought Harry, this is the part where it gets really fucking good. He might have said it out loud; Malfoy gave a pleading moan anyway. He now needed his hands to brace himself; he found he was helplessly humping the mattress, groaning into the pillow at each swift, deep intrusion. His own balls were starting to ache as his orgasm began to coil at the base of his spine. Malfoy grabbed his shoulders so he was pulling him upright, he could feel the man’s muscles cording against his back with the effort as he lifted him towards him, impaling him on his erection. Harry gasped and pumped at his cock as the need to come overtook him and he spurted a long jet of spunk that went on and on with Malfoy still driving hard into his clenching arsehole. He felt dry lips press against his neck as Malfoy let out a deep, heavy groan.  


When Harry got back to himself again he snorted. Two can play at that game, he though, getting down on his hands and knees and pushing his arse up onto Malfoy with all the force he could muster. Malfoy managed three more thrusts before he shot hard into his arse, collapsing against his back, swearing repetitively as if he disbelieved in his own orgasm. Got you, thought Harry, you really loved that. He could feel the damp weight of Malfoy against his back and felt a little victorious. Bet you never knew the good guys could pull tricks like that. He smiled as Malfoy slid out of him, rolling to the side to bundle up all the dirty latex.  


Harry opened his eyes. Malfoy was already buttoned up again, but his hair was rather lusciously damp and there was a pink flush along the ridge of his cheeks.  


“You’re a good fuck, Malfoy,” said Harry. He couldn’t think of anything else to say. Malfoy just smirked that barley there smile and walked off, leaving Harry to try and get to sleep on the filthy, ruined pillows.

~*~

He couldn’t quite establish when it happened, but suddenly Harry seemed to be spending less and less time in his little flat in Herne Hill. He found it unexpectedly pleasant to no longer be living alone, to find things in the kitchen that he hadn’t placed there and to be made cups of tea when he wasn’t expecting it.  


At first it was because he was simply too ill to manage by himself. He ended up having to take six weeks off work with his septic tonsils and he felt lousy for another four after that. Grimauld Place lacked the cheery bluster of the Burrow, there was no fuss, no cuddles, no constant smell of cooking from the kitchen, and Harry found it an overwhelming relief. He had been so poorly he just felt grateful for other people being there if he needed them.  


When he finally felt well again, he found his own flat too quiet. The silence had never bothered him before, or perhaps he had liked it, but now he missed the high pitched voices of Scops and Teddy babbling in the background, their cheery energy, the clacking of Andromeda’s slippers as she pottered around in the kitchen. He missed the bullfrog voice of Kreacher and the breathy squeak of Winky, he missed having other lives around him, planting seedlings, reading books, living and being unconcerned.

He missed the hope there too. Malfoy was still the only lead he had, the only lead anyone had. In Number Twelve there was still the chance that he might slip up or give in. The dingy hallways felt like the only place on earth where hope still remained. Ron and Hermione had started to talk about winding up the Extraordinary Committee. Even the news that Ginny was coming back failed to add any more momentum. Hermione said there was no point in hanging on to the past and that they needed to be thinking of moving on. Harry didn’t feel ready to give in yet, not with Draco’s grey eyes on him in the kitchen, hiding their secrets behind that mocking half-smile.  


Then of course there was Draco’s willingness to sleep with him. Harry had discovered he really liked sex the summer after Ginny had left him, not that it had been in any way bad with her. But he had liked the uncomplicated nature of sex with men, the roughness of it, the fact you could be honest about wanting to feel good and to come and then leave with no pretence or hassle. Except that one guy who fell in love with him and sent him so many texts in a day he had to change his mobile phone. Harry had quietened down after that. In the last year, work had been so stressful he had barely had thoughts to spare for anything else, let alone the energy.  


In Grimauld place, he could ask questions in the dark and there was always the chance the answer would be a full body slam against the wall and a fucking so hard it took him out of himself. Draco was easily the most exotic, dangerous and damaged person he had ever been with. There were great flashing lights in his head telling him not to go there, telling him Malfoy was bad news even as he watched Draco twine his arms through the metal bedstead, kneeling on the carpet, taking as much of Harry as Harry could give him. Danger had always excited him, if he were truly honest with himself. It was being forced to stay still and be good that was the killer. Harry let the warnings play, kissing the sensitive spot behind Draco’s earlobe, loving the sense of power he got from giving him pleasure.  


Harry had to have injections because he was Draco’s lover. He had to have a blood test. He had to be lectured by a humourless nurse about his sexual practices. You shouldn’t do anything that breaks the skin, she had said coldly. For a moment he felt for the beautiful violet haired girl that grinned out of the picture frame on Andromeda’s bedside table. He wondered if she’d had the same lectures. It was a price worth paying. He wondered if Nymphadora had thought so too.  


Draco would spread his legs and let Harry lick and suck all over his cock and balls and arsehole, but he wouldn’t take his shirt off in bed. Come off it, thought Harry, I know it’s bound to be a mess under there what with the dark mark and you sticking needles in yourself. There’s no need to be ashamed around me.

Draco never told him what he knew.

~*~

One evening, he was just returning from putting Teddy to bed when he realised he could hear Draco speaking softly to Andromeda in front room. From the landing, the words themselves were muffled and indistinct, so he slipped his shoes off and carefully tiptoed down towards the half open door. Draco sounded a little emotional; Harry half-knew he still cried sometimes, although every time he thought he’d caught him he had always managed to pin the blame on Scops. He was midway down the staircase when Hermione turned up in his head to remonstrate that this was a fairly crappy thing to do. He ignored her. She was talking about winding up the committee. He did not give up so easily, but he did not go any further down the stairs.  


“They won’t let me back,” he heard Draco say quietly; “I think Andy tried but he’s too pathetic to really be much use.” He gave a snort. “That’s the problem with nice people they’re always far too decent to see through their good intentions. Give me someone who calls me a bastard any day.”  


“Was it really any help?”  


“I don’t know,” Harry could hear the sulkiness in Draco’s voice. “It was more embarrassing really. Like being at City Roads only worse because at least there you didn’t have to explain you were a junkie. The first day just sat there the whole time looking at this muggle in a suit thinking what the hell do you know? But then –what else is there? I’m not going to drag on like this.”  


There was a long silence. Harry felt Hermione raising her hand again. He shushed her. He needed answers. People were dying because Draco wouldn’t give him answers. And if Draco wasn’t going to speak, what other option did he have?  
“So you gave it a chance-,”  


“And it could have worked, perhaps. I don’t know. Actually I doubt it because it’s all supposed to be about honesty, right? But then there was no way it could ever work for me without me lying my arse off. Anyhow, that paper got caught alight and that was the end of it.”  


“By you?”  


“I – I – I have no idea. I don’t know. I can’t see how it would have happened otherwise.”  


Harry’s heart was hammering in his throat. Malfoy does know something after all, he told his inner Hermione. Here’s the trace we have been looking for. Draco was speaking again:

“Do you know what that arsehole said?”  


“Who, this muggle Andy?”  


“No Doctor Scalds. The big bastard, bald head like a hippogriff egg and a suit that’s too tight for him. Looks like a punter,”  


“Draco -,”  


“Well he does. So after Andy completely failed to defend me I just knew it wasn’t going anywhere and left. And I heard him, this stupid muggle prick, suddenly say: ‘Andy, one day you and I are going to have a little chat about borderline personality disorder’.”  


“What’s that supposed to mean?”  


“I dunno.” Harry thought he could hear Draco’s voice crack, “It’s not a compliment though is it?”  


He heard Draco sniff. Hermione was really not taking no for an answer this time. He got up to move and the stair creaked massively as if some remnant of the old Magical anti-intruder alarms had suddenly sprung to life. He froze. He heard the door to the front room being slammed shut violently, a child start crying, and a livid voice call out:  


“How much did you hear of that, Potter?”

***


	8. Chapter 8

**12 Grimauld Place, Chelsea, London, 1st December 2002**

  
Harry rolled over and turned the bedside light on. He saw the fuzzy outline of Draco next to him, sitting up against the pillows, staring into the dark. He blinked owlishly at the sudden presence of light. Harry scrabbled for his glasses and looked at him. He was holding the covers around his knees.

“You’ve still got a magical signature,” said Harry.

Draco nodded slowly but didn’t turn to face him.

“What happened,” said Harry tentatively, “the day you set the paper alight?”

“I don’t think it means anything. The Muggle was sitting across the desk from me. It was half three in the afternoon. It was a walled up room, no natural light, although the leaves were turning, and it was crisp and cold like Halloween used to be outside. I remember that, because it made me cheerful. I was getting used to going to the centre; I’d got into a routine, every Tuesday afternoon. I was much less unhappy about it than I had been. I could even see it was almost useful. There you go; I admitted a muggle was almost useful.” He smiled. “We were talking across the desk, and there was a large piece of paper between us, thin paper, like a child’s cape. I was...,” he almost imperceptibly shrugged; he was still talking into the air ahead of him, “being Draco Malfoy. I was being stubborn and I was quite angry, but it was in no way worse than any of the other sessions.”

Harry chewed a fingernail thoughtfully.

“What was on the paper?”

“What?”

“The paper you set fire to -the paper that burned?”

“Nothing,” said Draco. There was a long silence. “We hadn’t started yet.”

“What was going to be on it?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Malfoy, you’re doing that Slytherin thing again.”

“Self-preservation?”

“Lying.”

Draco let his head drop.

“There was something on the paper. There was a green circle drawn in marker pen in the centre. They had this theory that I had a problem with - things, and so the idea was that they put that thing in the centre of the paper and you sort of drew bubbles coming out of it that you thought related to this.”

“It sounds like the sort of thing I did in infant’s school,” said Harry, wondering if that would have humiliated Draco, then realising he would have no concept of ‘infant’s school’.

“It seemed like the sort of thing Muggles would like,” said Draco.

“Why green?” said Harry.

“It was the pen he picked up. It was the only fat pen he had on the desk,” he paused, “not everyone looks at me and thinks Slytherin, you know.”

Harry paused.

“Could you do it now?”

“What?”

“Could you do what you were supposed to do with that counsellor now?”

Draco looked like he was about to object, but Harry was already out of bed and pulling his shorts on. He wandered into the living room and picked up the sketch pad and felt-tips he was going to give to Teddy. He put them down on the bed next to Draco and got back into bed with him. For a moment, he thought Draco wasn’t going to cooperate, but then he turned to face him.

“Alright,” said Harry, “so there was a circle in the centre,” he flipped the sketch pad open, “dark or light green.”

“Dark green,” said Draco.

“About how big?” said Harry

“Actually, more of an oval, or an egg. It wasn’t that big, about four inches in diameter.”

“Like that.”

“Yes, just like that.”

“And you said, the thing you had a problem with they were going to put in the centre of it.”

Harry wondered briefly what would happen if one had a problem with large objects. Perhaps they used models.

“Was,” said Draco. “It was in the centre of it; Feelings. No Emotions. The word Potter,”said Draco, as Harry continued to look perplexed.

Harry wrote it in. Draco stared at it.

“I’m not feeling remotely magical.”

“Angry?” said Harry.

“No, not really, no.”

“What was supposed to happen next?”

“I was supposed to draw out my feelings, you know the bubbles.”

“Go on then.”

“I can’t see it helping.”

“Go on.”

Draco rolled his eyes, picked up the black felt marker and wrote across the top of the page:

 **Not if I can help it !!!**

Harry picked up a pencil and wrote underneath it:

 **-Not helping Malfoy**

 **-TRUTH**

 **-I’m glad to see you’re not ashamed of your issues.**

 **-I’m the snarky one.**

Draco paused for quite some time, Harry watched his nostrils flare. After about three minutes of staring at the paper, he selected a dark blue pen and drew a large undulating shape that took up most of the left side of the page. After he’d thoughtfully coloured in the parameter of the bubble and the curving line anchoring it to the central circle, he wrote:

 ****

 **Fear**

  
He coloured the word in for a bit, then wrote alongside the F:

 **\- Meant to fill the whole bubble. If I still had a wand, it would.**

 **\- It doesn’t have to be art**

 **\- Says who?**

But Draco was drawing again, this time with a grey pen, a smaller, kidney-shaped bubble, nestled in the underside of fear.

 **Self Disgust**

Without comment, he went on to draw two much smaller bubbles emanating from this, one green, one purple:

 **Shit death eater**

 **Don’t deserve help.**

Harry picked up his pencil again:

 **\- Why?**

 **\- Not bad enough.**

 **...**

 **-I’m the only person who feels guilt over who they didn’t kill.**

Harry rolled his eyes and picked a red pen out of the packet. He drew two small, cherry-shaped circles hanging from the Don’t Deserve Help circle:

 **Drama**

 **Queen**

Draco selected a brown pen, linked the two red circles back together and connected them to another enormous oozy triangle on the bottom right of the sheet:

 **Hating that bastard Harry Potter**

 **\- Predictable**

Draco ignored him and squashed two further bubbles into the tiny space between the huge Harry bubble and the right edge of the paper.

 **Fucking bastard is so fucking perfect**

 **He slept with me when he shouldn’t have**

 **-Does that still bother you?**

 **-YES!!!**

Draco grabbed a purple pen in frustration and hastily drew another squashed lozenge coming from Harry’s bubble.

 **All GAY MEN ARE SIKO RAPISTS**

 **\- You’re gay Malfoy**

 **\- I know**

There was a pause then Draco wrote again:

 **-You raped me**

 **-Oh god.**

 **\- When we have sex it feels like you are raping me.**

Harry picked up his red pen and drawing a thick red line from the purple bubble just managed to squeeze a small red bubble into the top left of the page:

 **Why do you have sex with me then?**

Draco switched back to the blue pen to draw another bubble along the top of the page:

 **HATE**

  
He then changed his pen and carefully coloured it in orange, then added in the orange pen beside it:

 **\- Cos hate is important to me.**

For good measure he nestled a small orange bubble between Emotions and Self Disgust:

 **weak**

  
In purple he added another bubble left of centre:

 **vain, self  
centred little  
Prick**

He drew another purple arrow from that bubble linking it to Self Disgust.

Harry went back to the hate bubble and wrote:

 **\- Of who?**

 **\- Just generalised hatefulness**

 **... stupid people**

 **-Muggles?**

 **\- See above**

 **-Mudbloods**

 **\- no**

 **\- : )**

 **\- Oh fuck off if you think that’s enlightenment. It’s just there’s no point now.**

 **\- You’d be surprised.**

 **-MY MAP POTTER. If I say I’m an arsehole**

 **I’m an arsehole.**

Draco was carefully shading in the sides of the Self Disgust bubble. After a few minutes he drew a grey arrow to one of the few blank spaces left on the page. In the same green Harry had used to make the central bubble he wrote:

 **When I was working  
2 men locked me up and  
I was more worried about  
withdrawing than what they would do to me**

  
He was drawing a link to the Gay Men bubble when his hand knocked Harry’s who was also writing:

 **\- How long for**

 **\- 12 hours – they**

 **didn’t want me in**

 **withdrawal. I**

 **stopped**

 **being**

 **fun**

Harry looked about the paper for an empty space to colonise. He took the conversation up to the gap between Vain Self Serving Little Prick and his own bubble:

 **\- You do know I’m not going to sleep with you again until you have had some pretty intensive therapy**

 **\- Yeah right,**

 **\- I mean it.**

Draco drew three very pointed arrows straight into the Hating Harry Potter bubble. Harry moved upwards to the Fear bubble.

 **-Of what?**

 **\- Just fear.**

 **Everywhere.**

 **All the time.**

 **Fear and disgust.**

Draco drew a round brown circle with very thick walls at the dead centre of Fear:

 **needing a  
£10 bag.**

 **\- That’s not an emotion**

 **-It’s what I spend most of my days feeling. And nor is that.**

He drew an arrow to the when I was working bubble. Harry raised his eyes and moved out of the fear bubble:

 **\- What about Guilt?**

 **\- Don’t feel it. Sociopath.**

It was Harry’s turn to draw a connecting arrow to their conversation under Shit Death Eater. Draco scowled and drew a tiny finger-tip sized bubble and squeezed the word **guilt** in there, before adding outside the bubble:

 **Over not killing Dumbledore.**

Harry grabbed his red pen and drew the largest bubble he could fit in next to it:

 **Denial**

 **-My fucking map, Potter.**

 **Also are you a fucking teacher now or what?**

Harry spread his hands. Draco moved into the Hating Harry Potter bubble:

 **\- I called you a rapist and you are still sticking up for me.**

 **\- Saviour-complex**

 **\- If I booked myself into therapy could we still do non-penetrative?**

 **\- I thought you didn’t like sex?**

Still in Harry’s bubble Draco started drawing furiously, a line from that conversation to a light blue bubble containing the words:

 **I’m a psycho with  
a split  
personality**

Followed in quick succession by a purple bubble that Draco drew jagged squiggles around, making it look like a mutant sunflower.

 **Evil**

This was followed by two more purple bubbles squashed against the wall of the Harry bubble.

 **NO FEELINGS**

 **Fucking warped**

Harry picked up his red pencil again and linked the final bubble to the line beneath intensive therapy and the twin Drama Queen bubbles. Draco snarled at him and with the dark green master pen drew a bubble between Shit Death Eater and Hating Harry:

 **No  
fucker  
locked  
me in  
a cellar**

 **-So?**

 **\- So I don’t deserve to have these feelings do I? I never had it that bad.**

 **\- It was a cupboard. You didn’t miss much.**

Harry let him viciously colour the arrows linking the three bubbles in a chain. Draco scowled. Harry looked at the paper; there was barely any space left. He guessed that must mean the exercise was complete, but was unsure what he was supposed to have gained. Finally, he took up his pen and wrote across the centre of the paper:

 **WHERE’S SCOPS??**

Draco replied:

 **DONT WANT TO GO THERE**

Harry picked up the red pen and was drawing an arrow up to a fresh bubble when Draco pushed his hand off the page.

 **-DON’T YOU DARE PUT LOVE ON MY MAP.**

 **DONT YOU DARE.**

There was a pause. Harry noticed Draco was breathing too quickly. He watched him slowly gain control of himself, forcing his breath into a regular rhythm.

 **-Can we fuck?**

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” said Harry. He had a curious feeling, which he recognised as the momentary disorientation that happens when an enchantment breaks. He flipped the sketchpad shut, eased the black pen out of Draco’s fingers and gathered the pens back into the packet. There were orange, green and blue stains on the bed-sheet.

“Well, said Harry. “You didn’t set my bed sheets on fire.”

He got up and took the things back to the living room. When he returned, Draco had rolled over and was pretending to be asleep. Harry took his glasses off, switched off the bedside lamp and stared into the dark. He fell asleep around dawn, dreaming of that scrabbling, sucking creature left under the seats at King’s Cross.


	9. Chapter 9

  
**12 Grimauld Place, Chelsea, London, 2nd December 2002**   


“Personally, I don’t know how you stand the stuff,” said Draco, waving a red plastic spoon in front of Scops’ face. “Excellent work there,” he added, nodding as Scops took another spoonful of mush. “I know, it’s absolutely hideous, but you’re still too young to speak,” he wiped a stray dribble off the kids’ cheek, “and even then it’ll be another thirteen years before anyone listens to you. Potter, stop gawping and put the kettle on.”

Potter had walked into the kitchen looking as bleary and ruffled as Draco felt, except Draco was quite sure his own hair did not look anywhere near so close to a partially transfigured hedgehog. He watched him yawn over his shoulder. He looked knackered. Good, he thought, you just yawn and don’t ask any questions. I’m not in the mood.

“What time did you get to sleep?” said Potter.

“Didn’t. That’s why I rather need the coffee.” He turned back to the child. “Now Scops, this is the last, absolutely the last mouthful until I put you through the whole horrible ritual again tomorrow, so open up.” He watched the child swallow and hoped fervently that the food would stay down and that Potter would shut up. Winky knocked briefly against his leg and let out a squeak of apology as she dashed around the flat loading up the buggy with bottles and bags of clean nappies.

“Are you going somewhere?” asked Potter.

Draco judged it safe to remove the bib from Scops. “You really need a haircut.”

Potter made some stumbling noises of assent from the stove.

“Not you, you prick,” He knocked the child’s flyaway white blond hair, Scops wiggled in his chair and started to bang his fists on the tray. “It’s not always about you Potter.” He turned back to the squirming child. “Alright,” said Draco, unclipping the tray, “alright.”

He draped the child across his shoulder while he disassembled the high chair. Winky wheeled it over to the corner. He noticed Potter finally making himself useful and spooning coffee into two white mugs.

“Scops and I get about a fair bit. Not that we bother to check our social schedule with you. But today we’re going to the doctors.”

“What are you going to the doctors’ for?” said Potter clicking a steaming mug of black coffee down on the work surface. He lowered Scops to the floor where he began to crawl about manically.

“I thought I’d try stealing some prescription pads. You never know when they might come in handy and I’ve heard they fetch an awfully good price on the internet.” He sniffed at his coffee, wondering if it was cool enough to risk a sip.

“Malfoy!”

“Is everything in the world your business? Scops has managed nearly one whole year on the planet so today he is due his celebratory poking and pinching session.” Draco risked it and took a swig. He felt the skin in his mouth tighten and sting.

“Congratulations Scops,” said Potter, raising his coffee mug in a toast.

“We’re not quite there yet,” said Draco watching him swallow. The whole experience looked a lot more pleasant, but then Potter was sensible and took milk. He watched him for a few moments as the green eyes became less dazed and more focused. He was just hit with the realisation that it was time to run, now, when he realised it was too late and Potter already had his mouth open.

“About last night-,”

“Get stuffed Potter,” he moved to scoop his child up. He was even willing to abandon the coffee to get himself out of there.

“I just wanted to say -,”

“Leave it Potter,” he said, shifting a now very heavy and very squirmy child onto his hip. “I said leave it.”

Potter’s eyes went wide and the next thing Draco knew his coffee mug was all over the floor and Winky had appeared again with a dishcloth and was chiding Potter and wiping around his feet at the same time. He continued to stare ahead like a werewolf at the full moon. Draco wondered if he was about to start spouting hair.

“That’s it,” he said.

Draco was just thinking of something really nasty to say when he felt Potter’s lips with all their coffee taste and morning fur bump against his. The kiss was soft and slow and there was no push for tongue penetration, just as well at this hour, he thought. Potter was looking at him like he’d never seen anything so remarkable in his life. He took a step back, feeling wrong-footed.

“There is something left. There’s a part of Voldemort’s soul that remains. Dumbledore told me to leave it, but it’s there.”

“Potter, you are babbling.”

“No – listen. When Voldemort tried to kill me the first time, he left a bit of his soul in me, so then I had to let him kill me a second time to get it out, so I did and I was there with the piece of his soul that had been in me, and then Dumbledore showed up and told me to leave it. So I left it and then I ended up back in the woods with your mum.”

Draco felt deeply relieved his coffee had cooled enough to be drinkable. It didn’t make the story make much more sense but it did make his brain cells feel less like they were imploding listening to it.

“So where is it?”

Potter was stroking his arm.

“King’s Cross.”

  


~*~

  
Draco shifted on the wooden chair as Scops was weighed and measured like a Halloween Pumpkin. The nurse had picked him up and had him show off his crawling skills and his repertoire of disconnected noises. She had looked into his eyes and ears. She gave him back to Draco, but he seemed more interested in rolling on the floor and trying to climb up the chair leg. The nurse smiled up at him:

“And how’s Dad?”

“My Father’s dead,” said Draco blankly.

“I meant you.” said the nurse. He felt very stupid. Of course she meant him. He was convincing everyone these days with his unexpectedly terrific parenting skills. He even seemed to have convinced Scops, who acted like he adored him. The only person who wasn’t buying this charade was himself. He wondered if Occlumency skills still worked without magic, because more than once he had caught himself thanking the stars for Aunt Bella’s little lessons.

“I’m fine,” said Draco.

“How’s the hand?” she asked.

“Still sore. I think they’re waiting for the abscess to clear before they operate.” He put his right hand down to Scops who had succeeded in pulling himself upright against the chair leg and ruffled the fine blonde hair. “Well done Scops, you’ll be flying before you know it.”

The nurse smiled at him. The silly cow thinks I’m being eccentric, he thought.

“It’s still not cleared up yet?”

“No,” He sensed danger for the second time today. His right hand involuntarily clenched.

“Well, can I have a look at it? This is a health check up.” Draco froze for a moment and then shut his eyes, hitched his sleeve up and put his hand on the desk. He heard the nurse suck her breath in and braced himself for being treated like a freak again.

“Are you putting anything in it? Or are you just picking at it?”

He opened his eyes. He had the same sensation as he had on the day he had left City Roads, the feeling of all the words being somewhere out of his reach. He stared ahead.

“Picking at it.”

She continued to turn the hand in her own gloved ones, prodding at the raised red flesh. He bit his lip slightly.

“Would it make it easier or harder for you if I told you this was fairly common?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s been noted in literature – this sort of behaviour, aggravating old drug using wounds long after the use itself has stopped. I had one woman who was injecting vinegar -,”

“I’m reconciling myself to being fairly common,” he replied. Please don’t give my inner Death Eater ideas, he thought.

She flipped his hand over and pulled the fingers down one by one. Only the index finger and the thumb showed any sign of responsiveness.

“How long ago did this happen?”

“Last May,” said Draco. He shrugged. “I had a bad reaction to some medication, and I was staying with my mother. It was a bit fraught.” He stood up to retrieve Scops who was crawling over to the adult scales in the corner of the room. “Come here, lump.”

He felt more comfortable with the child in his hands. He brought him back to the chair and sat down on the floor beside him:

“Go on, do that standing up thing again.”

“Did you mean to do it?”

“I can’t have, can I? It’s alright,” he smiled over at the child, “I’ve always been pretty rubbish at death. It’s like my headmaster said, if I’d had been serious I’d have used slightly more committing methods.”

Scops had given up trying to climb up the chair and was now climbing up him. The nurse looked down at him.

“Did you get any help, afterwards?”

“I moved back to London. That helped. I did get referred to Camomile Grove but I set something on fire during one of the sessions and now no one will touch me with a bargepole. Too high risk.”

“How often do you feel suicidal?”

Draco looked at Scops who was standing on his leg and looking out over his shoulder.

“If I felt suicidal I wouldn’t be here,” he snapped coldly. “If you’re suicidal you jump off a bridge or under a train. Anything else is just whinging.”

Or in front of a Dark Wizard, he thought. The nurse was going on in her best old bint McGonagall voice about having a child to look after now but he wasn’t listening. His mind was replaying this morning’s crazy conversation in the kitchen. He found concern an unexpected visitor to his psyche, but now that it had arrived it appeared in no undue hurry to leave.

It’s really not me you need to be worrying about on that front.

~*~

  
**Kings Cross, London, Saturday 11th January 2003**   


“Are you sure about this?” He could tell Potter was resisting the urge to touch him as they dismounted from the number 73 bus. He could save himself that trouble. He was a junkie; he got triggered, he’d got used to dealing with it. It was old hat; some days he still smelt it, rotten and almost fishy in his nostrils. Some times when he was thirsty and his mouth was dry he would get the thick, numb sensation on his tongue as if he had just taken a hit. Some mornings he would be reduced to sitting on the kitchen floor holding his knees as the cravings drilled through him. There was that little pop, more of a feeling that a sound, as the needle broke into the vein that he ached for. That much was every day, he’d got used to getting through it like he got used to getting through everything else.

He had vividly pleasurable memories of a sensation beyond getting through. That was the drugs. He had no fond memories of this place. It had been a year, he could get over it.

“It’s your nightmare,” he replied.

They walked into the station together. Draco thought it looked cleaner, although maybe he hadn’t looked much back then. He still didn’t hold much hope that anything of Potter’s weird dream was going to materialise in the waking world. Even if they found the remains of Voldemort lurking in a hidden corner, what were they going to do? Ask it nicely to restore magic? It looked like any other muggle station. Draco felt almost nothing towards it. He found himself unwillingly forcing his mind back to try and fix an emotion on the blurred and timeless months he had spent here.

“Are you alright?” said Potter.

“It’s the fifth time you’ve asked. Yes, I’m fine. Why don’t you sit down?” Draco stopped abruptly by a row of grey plastic seats.

“What good would that do?”

“It’s what you were doing in the dream, or whatever it was.” He pulled his coat about himself, more out of habit than need. It was a curiously mild day for January even with the skies clear. The pale winter sun had a surprising warmth.

“It wasn’t a dream,” said Potter. Draco remembered he was banned from the station. He probably still was, although he doubted any of the security guards would recognise him these days. That’s probably why I don’t remember it, he thought.

“Whatever it was,” he replied. Potter was looking at his trainers.

“I think it’s the wrong King’s Cross,” he said slowly. Draco waited patiently. He was beginning to feel anxious despite the sunshine. He watched the black uniformed ticket inspectors swarming around the gate-line. Potter’s feet moved awkwardly in front of them. “Do you remember the room in Moor Street?”

Draco shrugged.

“Vividly. It had the most disgusting shower in the world.”

“Do you remember the time I was there with you?”

Potter’s hand reached up and pushed his overgrown hair off his face. He really should get it cut although he didn’t know how to do it himself and he wasn’t keen on strangers touching him. He scowled.

“If this is where you ask me to go score and hit you up so you can go over, you can go to hell Potter.”

“What?”

Potter did look genuinely incredulous. He felt the fear inside of him ebb to background noise.

“I thought that’s why you brought me not one of your Gryffindor reunion committee members.”

He made more noises of disbelief. Draco thought he was really overdoing it now.

“Aside from why the hell would I ever want to touch that stuff after seeing what it did to you -, what do you think I am that I’d just send you off to get some? After all you’ve been through trying to get clean.”

“One of the good guys?” said Draco.

“I brought you here because I thought you’d have some idea of the feeling, of being between life and death. Because that’s where I was, in King’s Cross, not alive, not dead.”

“I don’t remember anything.”

Potter didn’t believe him. He could tell. It was alright because Draco didn’t quite believe him either.

“Can we go outside?”

~*~

Workmen were digging up Saint Pancras Road; there were red and white hoardings over everything. Draco jumped up onto the old goods yard’s orange brick wall. He had been quite agile in the days before Tom Riddle had turned up and in the last few months he had noticed his dexterity returning. He liked using his body like he had done as a seeker, he enjoyed the movement, of feeling brick beneath his hands, of being able to twist and turn and get places that other people couldn’t. Except Potter, of course; wherever he went Potter always managed to follow him.

They walked along the high brick wall watching the sun glint off the plastic sheeting on St Pancras Station. The sky was as blue as a duck’s egg, the brittle old bones of the one remaining gas-holder stood out black against it. Everything was sharp and clear. If he had been stood on the ridge above Malfoy Manor, he could have seen for miles.

“It’s kind of strange how they’re knocking everything down,” said Potter.

“Good riddance,” said Draco, although he wasn’t quite so sure. He had no affection for the place; still the stones, the railway arches, they were the only witnesses to whatever happened here. Without them, it felt as if it could be any story; he could have spent a year in a void or in a coma. “Anyhow, how do you remember it?”

“I came looking for you.”

“You couldn’t have looked very hard.”

“I asked the wardens. I put a photo out and they said they’d seen you.”

“God they were bastards, I think they broke my ribs one time throwing me out of a stairwell where I was trying to get some sleep. It wasn’t like I was disturbing anyone, the flats were empty. They all are round here. They chucked the people out and they’re going to pull them down.”

“It bothers you.”

Saint Pancras road started to curve away towards Camden. They had reached the end of the wall. Draco decided to sit down again, dangling his legs above the pavement where the occasional hurried commuter looked out of place.

“There used to be squatters in them at first. Muggles from abroad, always arriving in the dead of night. There would be a flat crammed one day and then empty the next. Tara said they sent them out to work on farms. Muggles used them like house-elves, anything they wanted doing but wanted done out of the way. We didn’t like them. They brought the Police. Then there were crack houses, the lock-down - a lot of girls worked out of there, young girls, the dealers used to lock them up. You’d go score and they’d be in the corner, you know, if anyone wanted. Nobody did, no one was going to waste money that they could be smoking, but it was something for the guys to show off.”

“I remember Tara beat one up once, really badly. ‘He’s not your fucking boyfriend and you’re giving us working girls a bad rep lying there with your legs open all day’. She really hated them, all of them and she was a werewolf so she knew how to do damage. We couldn’t go back for a couple of weeks, but muggles don’t have much memory.”

“Who’s Tara?” said Potter. Can’t you figure it out, he thought? Are you that blind even with your glasses on?

“She was one of Greyback’s. He got her from a care home when she was thirteen, made her one of his pack.” He shrugged, “It’s a long story, Potter.”

“She’s Scops’ mum, isn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“Did you love her?”

He snorted. Potter really was such an idiot sometimes.

“How about fucking no?” He paused, “We watched each other’s backs, you know. I’d never really had that before.”

He watched four workmen carrying a coil of plastic tube. I’d had people I could get to do things and I had people I could get stuff out of doing things for, and I suppose I had my parents, he thought. But I’d never looked out for someone who wasn’t a blood relative before and I don’t think I’d had anyone except my parents look out for me.

“Snape did.”

In his coat pocket there was a packet of cigarettes. He didn’t really smoke, not anymore, but he had judged today would be testing and he’d got a pack from Costcutters before Potter was up. At the mention of Snape he decided to snap. He pulled the foil away from the square packet and inhaled the sour, rich, nicotine smell. It took several attempts with the cheap plastic lighter to get it to catch but when it did he inhaled deeply and then nodded.

“Yes. Not that I was paying attention at the time.”

That’s another thing he suddenly remembered, the burn on your thumb from always flicking the lighter under the spoon. He took another drag on the cigarette.

“Dumbledore did.”

Draco shook his head. Potter was probably right, but he didn’t like being beholden to Dumbledore. There was something uncomfortable in it. He waved his cigarette.

“We were in the B&B on Acton Street with all the other junkies, sharing a bed, never really thought anything of it, I moved in when her girlfriend moved out. Then I ripped off one of the dealers in what was flats over there-,” he waved his hand at an empty piece of sky, “and I got locked down myself. I’d gone straight out afterwards, I’d had to, I was hurting by then. Nobody stopped. Tara gave me half a bag and then took me down to PCHP on King’s Cross Road to get cleaned up. They wanted me to go to hospital but,” he paused and took a long lungful of smoke, “you get forty mils of methadone in UCH. That’s nothing Potter. We did about three grams of gear that night. That sorted me out. Then we ended up in bed together –. God knows why. God knows what either of us got out of it. Comfort, I assume. The gear, well it doesn’t exactly make you the best fuck in the world. I didn’t think I even managed to come, must have done once though.” He took a last drag off the cigarette and threw it onto the streets below.

“We kept going when she found out she was pregnant. I think we both thought if she took enough she’d lose it. I wanted her to get rid of it, got her appointments, but she kept changing her mind, silly bitch, she kind of had this idea that she’d have something, love, whatever if she kept the kid. So she went to rehab. I let her go, you do that when you’ve got a habit, people just leave, it doesn’t matter. She didn’t stick rehab, I mean, how do you explain being a bloody werewolf? Mother said she was in a car park when she went into labour and they had to get the police to get her into hospital. They took the baby off her just after it was born.”

Draco looked at the paving slabs eight foot below his feet. How do you come back from that he thought? How do you ever come back from that?

He felt Potter’s hand on his back. The stupid bastard just wouldn’t leave it alone. He pulled his head up.

“Come on,” he said, “this isn’t getting us any nearer to finding stray fragments of dark wizard.”

  


~*~

  
There were some reasonably decent looking cafes at the top of Gray’s Inn Road that Draco hadn’t remembered being there. There were still the men waiting by the grey box, a muggle phone exchange he had been told, loitering, drinking cans of special brew, mouths pouchy with wraps of gear. They didn’t look at him now he was with Potter. Maybe they never looked at him anyway. Everybody in the street scene had that way of staring without looking because everything was a distraction from what was going on within. He shouldn’t have opened his mouth, but bloody Potter had a way of getting things out of him these days. There was too much anxiety in the air for him to feel hungry. Potter ordered him some spicy lentil soup and a hot buttered baguette. There were people in suits there. It was another world. From where they were sitting you could see the triangular building where the squat had been. It had some kind of derelict lighthouse on top of it. He had never noticed that before either.

“How’s it going at Green Lanes?”

“The junkie Mum’s coffee mornings?” said Draco, blowing on the greenish liquid in his cup. “Bloody awful thanks.”

Potter snorted and then took another forkful of omelette. His chips looked good too, small and dry and crunchy. He wasn’t sure his stomach could deal with anything that solid.

“You’re still going?”

“Can we talk about something else? Like how about you coming good with your side of the bargain now I’m doing remedial defence against the dark arts every Tuesday morning?”

He watched the green eyes flicker. Potter had been as good as his word since that night no matter how hard he had tried to dissuade him. Hard being the operative word, too. The bastard had started kissing him recently, proper kisses, like muggles did on posters. He touched him too, in public, a hand stroking his wrist or his shoulder, casual but intimate. Potter clearly thought something was going on between them and didn’t seem to mind too much who knew. It’s just he also walked away; even when he had pulled him so close he could feel Potter’s cock was rigid. Gryffindors had a will of iron when they believed their cause to be righteous. No wonder Draco was left picking at old scars.

Potter was touching him now, his hand covering his own on the table. Do you want to let the whole place know? He thought. The man from the Ministry touching up his little rent-boy in a cafe in Kings Cross. The wave of anger nearly crushed him as it broke over the table. He tried to breathe. He tried to think about his feet. He tried to remember what they were trying to teach him at the Sure Start centre. It wasn’t working. It never did. His marks for defence had been shocking.

In the third year, he had been walking up to Snape’s office to get a request to book the Quidditch pitch signed when he had caught that threadbare werewolf trying to report him:

 _“His knowledge of dark creatures is faultless, but when it comes to the basics of defensive magic -, it’s like we are asking for things that aren’t there.”_

 _“Mr Malfoy is a more than able student whose marks in all other subjects are exemplary. Unfortunately, his aptitude has also made him rather lazy and easy to bore. The other staff seem to have no difficulty in managing his wavering attention.”_

 _“I don’t think it’s just a matter of not applying himself, Severus,”_

 _He heard Snape crumple up a strip of parchment._

 _“I think someone would have noticed if Mr Malfoy was a squib, Lupin. It is his third year.”_

He had pushed the door open to stop them talking. The last thing he wanted was pitying comments from someone who bought their last set of robes in 1977. Snape had pretty much dragged him through his OWL after that and he had scraped Acceptable, the only A on an O covered sheet.

He reached up to touch Luna’s key under his shirt and registered Potter staring at him.

“You think I’m damaged goods, don’t you?” He wasn’t sure who he was saying it to, Potter or Lupin. Potter, he could understand; Lupin, well that was just stupid. When Lupin had known him the worst thing that had happened to him was getting a light swipe from a mad Hippogriff.

“Don’t play that card with me,” said Potter.

“My life’s not a fucking card.”

Potter sighed. Draco was seized by the urge to thump him, a dramatic, huge need shattering through the fear that was all around them. He felt his eyes prickle and blinked furiously. He wanted the relief of losing control, smashing Potter’s face into his plate, anything to say he wasn’t going to be treated like this.

“I’m not someone who would ever hurt you like that.”

“And you think this doesn’t hurt? You think hearing the junkie death eater repair kit opening up every time you look at me doesn’t hurt me? You think knowing that everyone’s always trying to measure me up, work out which bits they’ll take off and which bits they’ll keep – do you think that doesn’t hurt?

Potter was replying but he couldn’t hear him speak. He was fighting off the urge to throw something, to kick the table over, to get Potter on the floor and batter him like they did back in the days when they were children. And he knew he couldn’t do that, not anymore, no matter how bad the hurt got. It was like being thrown into a brick wall. Something grabbed his throat, pushing down on his windpipe. He wanted to hit out to get it off but instead he found he was running, outside the cafe, in between the cars and under the dingy canopy of King’s Cross.

  


~*~

  
The mechanical voice boomed around the station. “Customers are reminded that smoking is not permitted on any part of London Underground.” Draco leaned back against the ticket hall wall and inhaled deeply. The smoke caught in his lungs, soothing the spikes of anger that were squeezing their way through his blood. He breathed in again. You can handle it the smoke told him. The fear will not get you.

The station repeated its warning. Draco realised people were now staring at him. He shut his eyes and continued to smoke.

“Oi! Ferret face, put that cigarette out!”

He nearly choked. The station had dropped its impersonal tones and changed its gender. It was the cameras of course, the muggles had cameras everywhere. He took a last, lingering drag on the cigarette and crushed it under his boot. A feeling of undefined misery crept up at its loss. From the gate line several figures in dark uniforms were sliding up towards him.

He knew he should escape and that there was a down escalator right in front of him. He knew he had money and a ticket and he could get away. Above ground was too dangerous now, it was like the anger had ripped the last year away. There was money in his pocket. He knew where to go. He hadn’t used for so long; it would be just like his first time with the needle, the rush would shut his eyes and clean his soul. He couldn’t go above ground.

The guards’ boots squeaked on the station floor. They crowded his vision, moving inwards.

He needed to escape and there was an escape route in front of him, but the idea of descending the escalators was beginning to fill him with real, clawing fear. He could feel the hot air blow up from the station depth, filthy and tasting of hot metal.

Not here, he thought. I’m really not going to lose it here. He felt the smooth, round walls of the tube tunnels press in against him, constricting his throat, making it impossible to breathe. If I go under here, goodness knows where I’ll wake up, in some flat, in the squat, in some bloody crack-house with two men on top of me. If I faint here I’m dead.

Black uniformed guards spread around him, in a semi-circle, pinning him against the wall. He had a ticket, he told himself. They kept coming up towards him. They had no faces. There was nothing where their face should be. They moved silently inward and all he could smell was rotting flesh.

Someone roughly grabbed his arm. Someone in a ticket inspector’s uniform. They’ve got me, he thought, and then he stumbled forward into the darkness.

  


~*~

  
When he came to he was sitting in a bright room that smelt overwhelmingly of stale biscuits. He lifted his head and looked up. His arms had been resting on a battered wooden desk; all around the narrow room, giving off the crazy smell were boxes and boxes of brightly coloured shiny paper. He realised he was in a store room of some kind, by the looks of things where the leaflets were kept. He pushed himself upwards and realised he wasn’t alone. There was a figure in uniform sat on the desk swinging its legs. He didn’t think the black guards would swing their legs. He looked at the figure again. The uniform was a mundane navy blue.

“Panic attack,” said the woman, handing him a clear plastic beaker of water. He swallowed. It was cold and it helped.

“Weasel, what the hell are you doing here?”

Ginny Weasley shrugged, still swinging her feet, “It’s King’s Cross station isn’t it? Since Harry told the committee about his theory, we’ve all been doing our bit at surveillance.”

Draco coughed. “I thought you were –,” he swallowed. It sounded ridiculous. “I thought you were something else.” He tried, and once again failed, to get his breathing under control. Weasley was getting out of focus. With her red hair plaited back behind her hat she no longer looked like herself.

“Dad got me a job here.” She paused, looked down at him and then added: “Malfoy, will you stop trying not to have a panic attack and have a bloody panic attack.”

Draco stretched out his arms on the table and gave into the terror. It wasn’t as easy as Weasley made out, he was struck by a shearing sense of being ripped and pulled at. His heart was beating too fast but it was very distant. He didn’t know if he was in pain or not because he couldn’t tell if he was in his body or not. He felt he may be somewhere else, somewhere in the emptiness where defective souls go. For a peculiar moment, he looked down and saw his head on the table, a ratty blonde that needed a haircut, resting on his pale bruised arms. Something was constricting his chest, making it impossible to breathe and he was very, very frightened that he might stop and his body would lock him out forever.

Slowly, he began to register the pressure of wood under his palms, the chipped varnish of the table, the fact his arms were not bare. His eyes started to focus again; he saw the pile of bright yellow leaflets with Tube Map written on them. He became aware the room was quite warm, that he had cooling sweat on his face, and that he was not alone.

“You done?” said Weasley, handing him the beaker of water again.

“Fuck,” he said. It seemed to sum up the scenario. He took another deeply medicinal swig of water. “How come you know so much about panic attacks?”

“I did live with Harry for nearly a year.”

Draco snorted into the little cup. Trust Potter to keep that little secret to himself. He’s all about getting you to fix your mess ups but when it comes to his own they’re bloody sacred state secrets.

“What were you seeing?”

“What do you mean?”

“When you were out in the ticket hall you were seeing things, things that other people couldn’t see.”

“How do you know that?”

“I saw the way your eyes moved. Harry used to do that too, you know, after. He’d wake up and I would know that for a while he would still be there, still seeing what he saw in his dreams.”

“Well, I just ran out on the fucked up little bastard and he’s probably now searching every crack house in Kings Cross for me. Why is there a donkey in a sombrero here?”

“Malfoy, you’re getting off the subject.”

He looked around the room warily. There was more than the pink fabric donkey. Scattered randomly amid the brown cardboard boxes was a set of saucepans, what looked like some sort of light fitting and a large light blue metal disc. Not one of them was any help whatsoever.

“Alright Weasley, I’m going to tell you something. I can’t tell Potter because he’d freak out. The stupid little git thinks he’s responsible for the universal wellbeing of every wizard, muggle and squib, and if he knew what was happening he’d never let me leave the house by myself. I don’t suppose I can smoke in here?”

“No Malfoy, you can’t smoke in here.”

“I see ticket inspectors. Don’t laugh. They’ve been following me around for a while now, when I get frightened, or when -, it’s hard to explain but sometimes I feel like I’m almost in a trance. That’s when I get scared that I’ll run off and use because it’s like I don’t really feel connected to anything. It’s like I’m not real. I see ticket inspectors but they have got black uniforms and no faces and they want to come and get me. Do what evil ticket inspectors do I assume, drag me away and make me one of them. They’re not big on specifics. Luna gave me a key that helps keep them away, or at least, it helps me fight them. I realise this sounds insane.”

“That makes a lot of sense.” She said finally.

“I’m glad it does to someone. Weasley, why are we in some kind of muggle room of hidden things?”

“We’re in the lost property store. It’s not especially official but I’m waiting for someone to be free to take them down to Broadway. They’re just things muggles left lying about the station. Except the Caledonian Road lift hand-winding wheel; that’s a stores cock up. We haven’t even got lifts. I’ve been on to the DSM there to come and collect it but nobody has.”

“I thought I was going to hit Potter.”

He looked at his hands, folded on the desk, parallel to the top of Weasley’s navy skirt.

“You’ve done it before.”

“I haven’t actually. I made him attack me once, but I’ve never hit him.”

“I kicked the shit out of him,” said Weasley, “he just stood there and took it. I probably didn’t do much damage. He’s pretty tough. That’s when I knew I had to go. There’s names for people who do things like that. I got away. Stayed away. I’m not doing that to anyone ever again.”

“You trying to impress me with your dark side, Weasel?”

“I should have stuck with Tom Riddle.”

“How the bloody hell do you know Tom Riddle?”

“Your father introduced us.”

Draco dimly registered the hit. My father, the man who first put me on a broomstick, the man who read me Babbity Rabbity before I was in a full size bed, that man set the spirit of dark wizard on an eleven year old girl. I thought it was funny. Perhaps it would make more sense if my left hand did drop off.

“So you know what he does to people. I just think Potter -, well Potter can’t see how anyone would fall for it I suppose, but the people who did this, they were people I loved. I still do. My parents really loved me and yet they let him – I don’t know. They were just totally taken in.” He swallowed. He wasn’t sure where this was all coming from but he didn’t feel it could stop. “I was taken in. He made you feel special, right?”

“Yes,” she said, “he made me feel like I was special.”

“That’s what I said to Potter when he told me all the chosen one bullshit that Dumbledore came out with. That’s the crap they always spin you to get you to do something that’ll fuck you up forever. I knew a girl who fell in love with Fenrir Greyback because she reckoned he made her feel different and chosen.”

He pulled a pile of yellow leaflets towards him and started slowly ripping them apart, neatly, down the folds, so he could hear them tear.

“Why are you telling this to me?”

“So you can go tell your committee. So you can report back.” He tore the spiky lines of the west London tube map away from the centre. “I owe Potter. I owe him a life debt.”

The table was covered in mutilated paper. He looked at it in contempt. Just what did I do that for, he thought.

“And I’m worried it’s third time lucky.”


	10. Chapter 10

**  
Borough High Street, 7th February 2003   
**

“Call me a mudblood, but isn’t there the slightest chance Malfoy is just nutters?”

The table looked at Dean Thomas. Harry saw Hermione lick her lips. He never liked to think about his best friend like that, especially the best friend who was the live in girlfriend of his other best friend, but there was no getting away from it. Hermione looked kind of hot when she was really getting stuck into an argument. It made him feel uncomfortable but there was no denying it. She had spark when she was fighting.

“I think there is a reasonable chance that Draco has become psychotic,” she said calmly, “that has to be taken into account. I think there is an equally good chance he is telling the truth. These ticket inspectors look fairly familiar after all.”

“Of course they do,” said Dean. “You can see them in East Ham Station every morning.”

“They sounded like dementors,” said Ginny.

“Exactly,” said Hermione. “And that’s where it all fits. You see after I first heard Draco’s story, I did some research into the origins of dementors and do you know what I found? They’re new.”

“What do you mean?” said Ron, blowing on his sludgy hot chocolate. “I’m still not sure that we’re not taking the fucked up ferret a little bit too seriously. No really ‘Mione, he’s hardly the only one suffering here. Just ask Dad. Ask Harry. And unlike most of the poor sods, he was in it up to his neck in making this happen.”

“This isn’t about Malfoy,” said Harry.

“Bloody hell, can we record this?” said Ron, “That’s a first coming from you.”

“They’re new. For magical beings I mean. If you look at most magical creatures we’ve got reports going back millennia – the first Gryphons recorded in Abyssinia, Sphinxes on pyramid walls, middle Aztec sculptures of what are obviously red-caps. They’re ancient. But the first record of a dementor universally accepted by wizarding authorities is from 1938. And it’s from a Muggle. There are differences of course, and these have been subject to debate. The dementors he recorded – and from their actions, the coldness, the trance state, the effect on the soul and their more devastating effects on those who have already been subject to trauma-,”

There are things in your past that would make anyone fall of their broomstick, thought Harry. He swiped that thought away.

“ – they are almost universally regarded as true dementors. Except he recorded them dressed as soldiers. It’s worth noting this muggle had been a soldier.”

“But Muggles can’t see dementors.” said Neville.

“No,” said Hermione, “And that really complicates things. I wish Luna was here.”

“She did apologise,” said Harry. “She’s got ‘flu and a terrible case of wrackspurts.”

“There were records before then of course, muggle accounts that describe overwhelming sensations of cold and emptiness, of paralysis and being forced to relive painful memories. Most wizarding authorities accept they are close enough to the experience of being around dementors to count as a probable record, but even these don’t go back much more than twenty years before that. And there are Muggle accounts since then, from suicidal teenagers haunted on the Thames embankment, from muggle rock music, from mothers struggling with depression, lots of accounts. They all look slightly different, and not all experts on the subject agree that every account is valid. But there seems to be enough evidence to suggest that under certain circumstances muggles can see dementors, and give quite accurate accounts. Harry, did your cousin ever say what he saw?”

“I don’t think he saw anything,” said Harry, “All he said was he felt cold and miserable,”

“Pity,” she said, “But from what you have said about him he was a very Muggly muggle.”

“Besides, I don’t think Dudley Dursley was particularly familiar with the concept of trauma.”

“Probably not,” she said, “Although it’s interesting them attacking him at that point. It must have been a rather psychologically tense moment when he realised the kid he’d been bullying for the last fourteen years was not the waste of space his upbringing had led him to believe.”

“I think that happened afterwards,” said Harry, rather fervently hoping the conversation would move on.

Hermione narrowed her eyes and Harry felt a flare of irritation. I know you’re smart, he thought, but would you please stop second guessing my life.

“The fact remains dementors are new.”

“So where did they come from?” asked Ron.

“Nobody knows, but since that time they have been consistently recorded by muggle and wizarding sources.”

“You’re theorising something aren’t you ‘Mione?”

She looked momentarily awkward. It was the look she always got when she was venturing outside the world of books.

“Yes.” She said a little defiantly, “Yes. I’ve been thinking. I had another look through the the books the Ministry confiscated from Malfoy Manor, books on soul magic, possibly books that the Voldemort brought with him. There are some clues although not everything is accessible now.” She paused. “There is an idea that dementors sprang from fragments of souls in torment.”

“This soldier, was he by any chance fighting in World War One?”

“What war was that?” said Neville and Ron in unison.

“It was a muggle war,” said Dean, “There was a commission to our gallery to do an installation on that so I read up on it. And that’s how you split a soul isn’t it? By killing? And if people are killing – in hopelessness, in despair, then you would have a lot of raw material.”

“Actually,” said Hermione, “I think that’s relevant, but I think it’s more a case of the stories we told ourselves, wizards and muggles changed. Before that time, we imagined monsters as creatures that did things to us, Boggarts and Leithfolds and what have you. I think the war may have been a precipitating factor, but around that time we started to realise the darkest creatures came from within. So we started seeing dementors.”

She looked thoughtful.

“Although now you come to think of it, the war would have provided plenty of soul fragments. It’s not yet a solid thesis.”

“So where do Draco’s dementors come into this?” said Ginny. “Because as we all know Malfoy didn’t kill anyone. How come he’s got his own dementors?”

“And isn’t it just our bloody luck that were stuck without magic but still stuck with sodding dementors?”

“I don’t think that’s coincidence,” said Hermione, “because from what I’ve read, I think it’s possible that killing isn’t the only way to split a soul. Listen, I was thinking about the Carnifex Mundi hex, and the ingredients. Death well that was simple, the spell would only become effective on Voldemort’s death. Destruction, could be anything. I’m guessing it might have had something to do with Hogwarts, it was there the first magical failures started occurring and we all know what a strange bond Voldemort had with the place. Plus taking out something as magically significant as Hogwarts, well that would cause an impact big enough to set off the chain reaction that Ginny was talking about, but despair, that one stumped me. And then I was reading the books, reading about some really, really dark magic, and I realised they were spells, spells that I cannot see how you could ever get to work, but they do exist, and they are even more evil than the spell used to create horcruxes. They would have given Voldemort the despair.”

“From where?”

“From Draco.”

“Are you telling me Voldemort discovered how to grow dementors from bits of Malfoy? From his blood or his skin, or something?”

“Not quite,” said Hermione. “I think Voldemort discovered how to harvest pieces of human soul to gain the ingredients he needed. I think the dementors were an unintended side-effect of this.”

“He took – he took bits of Draco’s soul?” said Neville incredulously.

“I think – that’s what the theory suggests.”

“Oh God,” said Harry looking down at the table. Oh bloody fucking shit hell no.

When he looked up he realised the whole table was staring at him. He caught Ginny’s eye. Please keep your mouth shut, he willed. Please, please keep your mouth shut. Ginny looked away.

“On the positive front,” Hermione continued, “It means if we have dementors, we do have a trace. There is some magic left in the world. It’s the only indication we have that this hex might be reversible.”

“I think I preferred the theory that Malfoy was just psycho,” said Ron.

~*~

  
Harry looked up at the chimney of Lotts Road as he turned the key in the lock. He could hear Draco from the end of the hallway, speaking softly, almost playfully. He had never heard that tone of voice before. Harry guessed he must have been speaking to his child. He felt a little embarrassed witnessing the intimacy, but he still kept on walking. He needed to see Draco. He needed to hold him, pull him close. He had to touch him, as if he could sense by touch if the damage was true.

“Who’s that, is that Scops?”

Draco was standing holding Scops in front of the full length mirror. He was making faces and pointing. Scops was giggling and pointing too. He seemed so absorbed in watching his child react to the change in his expressions he didn’t register Harry’s presence for a few moments. When he did, he froze rigid. His spine straightened and his face slid back to its usual cool, guarded expression. Harry looked down at Scops, who looked for a moment like he may cry too but then thought better of it. His face became still, a copy in miniature of his father’s. And so another generation of Malfoys is made, thought Harry.

“Homework?” said Harry, casually.

Draco nodded without looking away from the staircase.

“It’s alright,” said Harry gently.

“Get lost Potter,” he said sulkily.

“It’s really alright. It’s normal stuff people do with kids.”

“No it is not. It is very fucking not alright. Scops and I have got an assignment to finish and I thought you’d be safely in the pub with all your other save the world cronies.”

“I wanted to see you,” said Harry. “I needed to hold you.”

“Ginny said her piece then.” Harry began to snake his arm around Draco’s taut, unresponsive back. He just left it there, one arm, diagonally from shoulder to hip for Draco to lean on if he wanted it.

“Ginny said her piece,” he swallowed, “and then Hermione added some things.”

“I bet. It doesn’t look good, does it, even before you drag in Aunt Bella. Ex-junkie going to see a psychiatrist once a week starts having hallucinations. I even thought it myself which means I’m getting used to thinking like a mudblood. Shows how well I’m adapting I suppose.”

“Someone said that, but not Hermione. She said something else,” he paused. “She said she thought what you were seeing were dementors, ones that had been coded to you.”

He looked at Draco who remained without expression. Harry tried to hold his voice steady.

“She said that could have happened because Voldemort stole pieces of your soul.”

“It sounds very dramatic when you put it like that.”

“Is it true?”

“Potter, there is a trained to kill Death Eater that still lives inside me. He is not going to let me go without a fight. And I’m not sure even now if I have the ammunition to win.”

“But you are still trying.”

“Of course I’m trying. I think everybody’s agreed I’m very trying.” The next words were spat. “A kid needs a father Potter, otherwise it could turn into a freak like you.”

Harry stroked Draco’s arm.

“Will you come into Sirius’ room after you’ve put Scops to bed?”

Draco looked furious. He snatched himself out of Harry’s grip. Harry wasn’t worried, he knew Draco long enough to know that these gestures were his way of dealing with things. They didn’t mean that much, overall.

“So after three months of doing everything you wanted, playing your game Potter, humiliating myself down the junkie mum’s learning squib level DADA, trying to look after myself, this is what it finally takes to get you off? You’ll go to bed with me now you think I’ve got some kind of profound damage. I should have hacked off a limb.”

“I’m not – I’m not saying I’m going to sleep with you. I just want to talk to you. In private.”

Somewhere where I can hold you, he thought.

Draco snorted and walked away.

  


~*~

  
 **  
Brompton Cemetery, April 5th 2003   
**

The cherry trees were out at the bottom of Gunter Grove. Harry was watching Draco. His coat was getting a little threadbare now; there were patches of wear around the shoulders and hips where his arms had scuffed the wool bare. Not bad going considering he had been wearing it practically every day since Harry had moved into Grimauld Place. It was good to be out of the house. It was nice to be in the sunshine. He had forgotten the last time he had just taken a walk for the heck of it, probably when he was still with the Dursleys, mooching around waiting for something to happen.

It was odd walking with Draco. He had done boyfriend stuff with Ginny, he remembered hanging around by the lake, lots of whispering and looking at each other, kisses and the feel of soft skin against his hand as he’d nervously unbuttoned her shirt, her beautiful hazel eyes laughing in encouragement. Draco had been there even then, in the back of his head, in the room of hidden things working away amongst a thousand years of broken magic, never quite still even as he inched his hand up his girlfriend’s skirt. He should have known back then, but it’s kind of hard to admit you fancy your worst enemy when you’re falling in love with your best friend’s sister. Looking back, he was glad his subconscious kept that to itself.

They hadn’t really hung out together after the war. There hadn’t been time. Harry would tumble exhaustedly into bed and they’d sort of make love like they were on a life raft. He wanted to cling to her, curl up inside her, beg her to keep him safe. And she would lie beside him dreaming of the great wide blue ocean, of escape and adventure on the high sea and new lands and places untouched by sorrow.

The sun was warm. There were tulips in the flower beds. Blackbirds hopped out from the laurel holding beakfulls of mud and grass. It was okay to think about that today. The world was bright enough for him to leave the sadness with the fluttering white blossoms and the cool, unfolding green pennies of the birch leaves.

“I realise this is very much your line Potter,” Draco was wearing that half smile of his, “but are you alright with this?”

Harry blinked. He wondered if Draco had had mind reading lessons from Snape.

“Well of course, shouldn’t I be?” He paused. “You’re not going to tell me anything awful are you?”

They passed a bare thorn bush alive with the cheeping of house sparrows. Can’t you just let me enjoy the sunshine for half an hour, he thought.

“It’s just, it’s a graveyard. You were tortured in a graveyard. My father told me. That’s not quite how he put it, but that’s what it was, wasn’t it?”

He looked around. It didn’t feel like a graveyard. It looked more like the formal gardens of one of the done up muggle manor houses he’d been to on a primary school trip. I should have taken notes, he thought, although I hardly knew then I’d end up with someone born to that world. There were arcades and groves and those funny sunken ditch things. Even the white marble of the headstones were too theatrical and too random to lend much of an aura of death to the place; they looked more like a frozen bric-a brac shop.

“I could ask you the same,” said Harry. “This place looks like someone cast transmogrify on the room of hidden things.” He slipped his hand into Draco’s, who tolerated it but didn’t grip back. “Which by the way, you’ve never given a satisfactory explanation for your presence in on the night of the first of May 1998.”

“You know what I was doing in that room, Potter.”

Harry paused. He wished Draco wouldn’t speak in riddles, although he knew why he was doing it. He remembered the only time in his life he had ever tried to talk in code, the pressure on his chest as Umbridge and half the inquisitional squad looked on, including Malfoy, come to think of it. The words had stung his throat as he tried to speak while trying to hide his meaning from a hostile audience. What was it what Draco had said? “There’s a trained to kill Death Eater that still lives inside me.” I bet it watches every word, thought Harry.

“I had counselling,” said Harry, “After the war, you know, people seemed to think it was a good idea.”

Draco dragged the toe of his boot through the sandy coloured gravel of the path. “Was it any use?” He said.

“I dunno.” He frowned. “I was very good at it.”

“I bet you were.” The ironic smile was back.

“No I was. They said I had great insight and emotional literacy, and because I sort of accepted my feelings about everything that had happened to me and I understood the processes of what was going on, they thought I’d be okay. I suppose spending seven years of my life as a wizard helped. So I guess it was a success.”

Draco bowed his head and kept walking. He’s going to make me pay for that, thought Harry. He’s not going to be best pleased I’ve just beaten him at something again.

“What did they make of the Muggles?”

“What Muggles?”

“You know the ones you lived with, the ones that used to lock you up and starve you.”

“How do you know about that?”

“Ginny told me.”

Harry found his own mouth quirking upward even as annoyance surged through him. So I’m the kind of person whose lovers discuss them behind their back like a badly housetrained puppy.

“I didn’t tell them,” he said sheepishly. He couldn’t look at Draco, he bloody well knew he’d be looking smug. “I was doing really well and I didn’t think it was important.” He gave a little shrug, more aware than he needed to be that Draco’s fingers were now circling his wrist. “It wasn’t real to me, not once I got to Hogwarts, that was what felt like my life. The Dursley’s were the least of my problems.”

“Did he hit you?”

“Who?”

“The muggle – whoever he was, your uncle.”

“Not really.”

“What sort of an answer is that?”

“It’s a true answer,” he said.

“And they call me a liar,” said Draco.

“He was a lot of threats, a lot of noise and bluster.” He shrugged, “It was nothing. Voldemort killed my parents, he killed people in front of me, he tortured me, and he destroyed the whole wizarding world. Compared to that what’s a grumpy muggle?”

“Is this triggering for you?” said Draco.

“What -,” said Harry and found himself yanked off the path. Draco dragged him through the wet grass, pulling him along. He didn’t resist, but he didn’t make it too easy for him either. They were fairly equally matched in strength, he remembered that from their old Quidditch days, although he doubted their various tussles on the pitch had been as erotic at the time as his memory wanted to paint them.

He found himself dragged into a grove of high redwood trees; he smelt the deep resin scent of the sap as he was forced backwards. Draco pushed him up right against the trunk; he could feel the cracked bark digging into his back. Draco put his hands on his face, stroking the sides of his cheeks, gently, repetitively as he leant inwards and spoke:

“Potter, I was a Death Eater. I’m a bully and I’m a snob, I was raised that way, and if I’ve changed, I’ve changed to save my own precious skin because living that way was a pure Azkaban sentence. I’m here because the Dark Lord was defeated, the drugs had stopped working and the dealer I ripped off was going to kill me. So don’t kid yourself I changed because of a sudden flash of grace. I’m not even remotely a nice person,” Draco’s left hand dropped to his waist, pulling him closer, “but even I know locking a child in a cupboard is a very bad thing to do.”

“It was a bedroom, they locked me in a bedroom.”

“Oooh, that makes it so much better.”

“I’m not saying it was great,” said Harry, registering the anger coming from the other man, “but in the grand scheme of things, it’s not much.”

“If it’s so okay, what do you think Dumbledore would have said if he’d have known?”

Harry liked Draco furious. He liked the dark flush on his cheeks and the way his nostrils flared.

“Dumbledore knew,” said Harry. He meant to say it to shut Draco up, to bolster his argument but hearing the words in his own voice made them seem odd. There was a strange feeling that he’d kept locked down since Sirius had died trying to bubble to the surface. He thought it might be resentment. Harry took a deep breath and tried to push it back down again. Everybody had thought that he had been an arsehole in the fifth year, although most people had been kind enough to tell him a long time after the event.

On the other side of him he heard Draco kick the tree.

“Of course” he said slowly. “Of course he did. He deliberately left you with a family that abused you, so that you would be so piteously grateful for any affection you would do anything that wicked old codger asked. Even die, by the sound of things. Not even the Dark Lord asked me to do that.”

“It wasn’t like that,” said Harry. “He thought I’d be safest with my mother’s family. He guessed I’d be able to survive another killing curse, and he had to let Voldemort kill me because I had a horcrux in my scar, it was -,” he bit his tongue. The words that wanted to come out were ‘for the greater good’ and he just wasn’t going to go there.

“You, Snape, everyone who’s been half decent in my life this man has just used like bloody chess pieces.”

Harry felt Draco’s body slam into his. The kiss was rough. He was still angry, very angry; Harry could feel his body shaking as they kissed. He wants to take it out on Potter again, thought Harry wryly as Draco pushed hard against his lips. His head banged against the tree trunk. Draco seized his bottom lip and bit down on it, hard, as hard as he dares go thought Harry, without breaking the skin. They kissed until they were breathless, until Harry had his hands all over Draco’s arse, pulling him in so tightly it felt like their hips might fuse together.

Draco pulled back gasping, his thin lips lush, his cold grey eyes blown black with arousal, but when he spoke it was with the same cold fury.

“I’m a recovering Death Eater,” he said, “and I’m pretty toothless now. I go to classes three times a week to learn to smile instead of snarl, and to suffer fools, and to deal with anger without resorting to drugs or unforgivables. I’m getting better at it.” He paused. You’ve still kept the Malfoy melodrama though, Harry thought,” But I tell you this, if I knew then what I know now I’d have blasted Dumbledore off that fucking tower in a heartbeat.”

He blinked. There it was, the whole list of reasons why he and Malfoy could never be on the same side: the selfishness and the self-preservation, the view of the world through those icy grey eyes as nothing but a web of power and manipulation, without a nod too compassion or love. All the reasons why he was the bastard he was and all the reasons why Harry should still hate him.

Harry looked up at the man leaning towards him, carding his fingers through his unruly black hair. He didn’t feel hate. What he felt was a half-formed mess of awe and gratitude. He initiated the kiss this time, softer, more exploratory, sliding his arms underneath Draco’s coat, running his hands over the backs of Draco’s thighs slowly, cupping his arse cheeks as he ground helplessly against him.

“We haven’t got magic,” said Draco.

“What do you mean?”

“This going to get messy, Potter. And I’ve got a coat,”

“Get my jeans open,” gasped Harry, “I’ve got tissues.”

Draco kissed him, teasingly chastely against his cheek before twisting open the button at the top of his jeans and lowering the zip. Cool spring air moved around his hips and arse as Draco pulled his trousers down and Harry caught the look of appreciation that Draco gave to his tented blue boxer shorts struggling to contain his erection. Draco played with it through the cloth for a few moments before opening his own trousers and pulling Harry’s shorts down.

Harry pulled Draco’s coat around them as they worked, cock to cock, thrusting against each other as they frantically kissed. Draco eased his leg between Harry’s so they had something to work against and somehow Harry’s glasses fell off, and he really didn’t care because he was going to have an orgasm with Draco and it had really, really been too long. All that mattered was sucking at Draco’s tongue and rubbing against Draco’s hardness.

“You’re trying not to come,” hissed Harry.

“I’m not losing to you, Potter,” gasped Draco.

“I’ve had a lot of practice recently,” said Harry, working his finger into the crack of Draco’s arse.

“So have I,” said Draco. He could still sound sulky even when he could barely breathe. That sent a jolt right down to the business end. Harry was so aroused he felt like his cock was sparking. He desperately needed to come.

“I wanked over you last night,” he hissed. “I do most nights.”

Warm come spurted over his belly. Draco hung his head back, panting, stomach muscles tensing as his cock pumped. Harry stroked his arsehole, feeling it quiver. Draco let out a long, accomplished moan and that was all the invite Harry needed to soak his lover with his own shuddering release.

You could forget how intense orgasm was, if you hadn’t done it with another person for some time. As they wiped themselves down and made themselves decent, Harry kept stopping, feeling almost shivery. It felt like magic had; the eerie prickle on the skin, the unnatural alertness in the senses.

When they were done he reached in for another kiss, feeling that drunken, sated need for just a little more intimacy. They broke apart and started to walk back towards the path. Harry was suddenly struck by an odd memory, of some death eater crucio-ing him and Snape shouting to leave him and go. He looked at Draco:

“You were trying to save my life,”

“What now?”

“In the room of hidden things, you tried to stop Crabbe casting cruciatus on me. You were trying to stop them killing me, weren’t you?”

“Potter, do you ever forget to breathe? Because you are without doubt the slowest person I have ever met, and everybody knows who I used to hang out with.”

“Why?”

“Because by that point you were the only hope I had left.”

Harry knew he was gawping. He turned to Draco and took his arms as they stood on the lawn under the eyes of a hundred marble soldiers and angels.

“Don’t be a twat and take it personally, Potter. You heard Crabbe, the Malfoys were finished. He was only waiting for you to be defeated before he started tidying up the loose ends. We wouldn’t have lasted a week with you gone.”

It didn’t matter. The cynicism, the bitterness, the wary look in Draco’s cold grey eyes. All that mattered was holding him close and kissing him once more. He couldn’t get enough of kissing Draco Malfoy and he wondered idly when he would ever be able to stop. He pulled the other man towards him:

“Same here Malfoy, same reason here.”

And then they kissed in front of the whole of Chelsea, streaming through the cemetery, out enjoying the spring air.

  


~*~

  
 **  
12 Grimauld Place, Chelsea, Friday 6th June 2003   
**

Hermione hadn’t booked the room for that month’s committee meeting. She had said it hadn’t been worth it for the six of them, but Harry guessed that wasn’t the real reason. They were forming plans now, and conspiracy was best done in secret. Even now, sat around the detritus of dinner at the kitchen table of Grimauld Place it didn’t seem real. Talking about magic felt like children’s games. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was trying to invoke some childhood protector, some teddy bear or comfort blanket, into action long after its place in the world had gone.

“There is a Kings Cross underneath Kings Cross,” said Ginny, fiddling with her UTS gate keys. She had come from shift and was still in uniform. It was odd seeing her like that; professional and impersonal, the familiar body hidden underneath navy blue acrylic. She looked like a stranger. “I’ve been looking around and swotting up, DSM’s privilege. There were plans in the sixties to build a new line on the course of the River Fleet -,”

“What the hell-,” said Ron, “That river’s cursed. These bloody muggles are crazy. Do you know how many wizards it took to get it buried and covered up? The water’s poisoned.”

“Well yes,” said Ginny, “but we never told them that. Engineering wise too, it was a damn nightmare. Do you know how many pumps it takes just to keep the Fleet from joining us on the lower level platforms? Muggles aren’t that stupid, it was abandoned and routed further west. But they built a connecting line and two platforms before they saw wisdom, hooked it up to the juice and everything. Battle Bridge sidings; they used to use it until the mid eighties as an emergency shunt for defective northern line trains.”

“Must have been busy,” noted Dean.

“Anyhow, it got too difficult to keep dry so they abandoned it. I went down there down to the connecting point, there’s a blind platform where the section switch boxes are and,” she paused. “The next thing I remember is being back on platform level.” She ground the tip of her key against the table, looking like she was trying to gouge out a piece of the wood work. “I do not appreciate having gaps in my memory.”

Harry had an overwhelming urge to put his arms around her. He resisted. If he’d learnt on thing from being a serial lover of unwilling minions of the dark lord it was to be sparing with spontaneous gestures of affection.

“What do you think happened?” said Luna.

“I don’t know,” said Ginny testily, “Probably popped down for a spot of slap-and-tickle with old Tom Riddle.” She sighed. “I’m guessing nothing. I’ve seen nothing out of the ordinary since then. No creatures from the abyss petrifying commuters. Nothing abnormal on the systems at all. My guess is I turned around and climbed back out. My guess is I registered something that made me shut down again.”

“Did you sense anything; you know the metal taste, or anything from Malfoy’s account?” said Hermione. Academic interest can really render one bloody insensitive sometimes, thought Harry.

“You’d be hard pressed to find any part of London Underground that didn’t smell of dirty metal,” said Ginny. “Although it’s interesting he was attacked in King’s Cross underground.”

“Not really, considering his history,” said Harry, ignoring the pointed looks. “Besides he sees them everywhere.”

“Really?” said Neville.

“Yes,” said Draco, “he does.”

They hadn’t noticed him walk in. Draco wondered up to the sink and busied himself pouring a glass of water. “Don’t mind me, I just live here.”

Harry looked around the table; Ron and Dean were staring like the reanimated Dark Lord himself had just joined them, Hermione looked mortified. Ginny continued looking at the table.

“Hello Draco,” said Luna. “Why don’t you join us? There’s still some fudge cake left.”

He remained standing by the sink, hiding whatever he felt by taking three long gulps of water.

“Budge up Neville,” said Ginny, shifting over and pushing herself against Neville who clumsily shifted up. Draco walked slowly back across the room. He was almost past the gap on the bench and Harry was certain he was going to leave before he turned and moved towards the table. He put his glass amongst the empty plates and then sat down.

“So I have finally been allowed in the Gryffindor common room,” he said. Harry felt his stomach clench. This is not going to be good, he thought.

“I’m a Ravenclaw,” said Luna.

For a minute, Harry swore he saw Malfoy flinch. He looked at Luna, briefly and for a split second he thought he caught a glimpse of Malfoy in his last days at Hogwarts, confused and thrown. Then he lifted his head and the blank, disdainful face was back.

The silence was deafening.

“Alright,” said Ron, “I’m going to get this out of the way with first. If you knew about the Carnifex Mundi curse why didn’t you say something a bit sooner than now? Because some of us have been really struggling while you were holding information back.”

“Ron!” said Hermione.

“Fair point,” said Draco. “Can we just add it to the list of reasons why I’m a petty, spiteful mean spirited person and move on? You are all agreed on that aren’t you?”

“I don’t believe you are any of these things, Draco,” said Luna.

“You believe in Crumple-Horned Snorkacks,” said Draco.

“If we can conclude the opening hostilities,” said Hermione. “Draco, you are very welcome here.”

Harry held his breath.

“And I’m sure you remember I was not one of your Dumbledore’s Army suicide squad. I’m nasty enough to put saving my own arse slightly above the need to save the world. So there you go Weasley, I’m not trying to force an entry into this year’s inter-house suffering championship, but you’re going to have to believe me when I say I had my own skin to save.”

He breathed out. At least he didn’t call her a Mudblood, he thought.

“Out of interest, what do dementors make you remember, Draco?” asked Ginny.

Draco ran his finger over the rim of his glass, watching it intently. He’s not going to answer that, thought Harry. No way will he answer that.

“Well, if we are going to relive old times,” Draco shrugged, “I remembered my father in a mask. That’s what I saw, on the Hogwarts express that time I took the piss out of Potter for fainting. I was really, really little and I saw my father with no face. It frightened me because I couldn’t see whether he was alright or not. As childhood traumas go, it’s not quite up there with seeing your parents blasted away in front of you, but there you go.”

“I should have got you socks for your birthday,” said Harry, not caring at whatever looks he was getting. “You can never have too many pairs of socks.”

Draco glared at him.

“Are you going to ask me what I would see in the mirror of Erised too?” He twitched his lips. “I see myself. You see, I’ve never been able to recognise my face in a mirror. Since that time, I think, it’s never been me.” He sneered at Harry, “Scops can’t inherit that; he can’t grow up like that because it’s bloody intolerable.”

The whole table was staring at Draco. That bloody Malfoy theatricality just won’t lie down and die, will it.

“You didn’t tell your story, because you didn’t know your own story,” said Hermione.

“I’m not the hero,” said Draco. “It was never my story, it was always Potter’s.” He paused. “Granger I understand you have been theorising about me quite a lot recently, so may I ask a question? As Potter was the hero, and as we all know the Dark Lord was more than a little obsessed with him, why didn’t he steal bits of the Chosen One’s soul for his nasty machinations?”

“Because Harry was a horcrux,” said Dean. “He had a bit of Voldemort’s soul in him, so he wasn’t going to attack him.”

“He didn’t know that,” said Hermione. “He didn’t know he had turned Harry’s scar into a horcrux.”

“He tried,” said Harry. “I think he tried, in the ministry, after Sirius died. I thought he was trying to possess me.” He looked at Draco. He wanted to shout ‘that bastard did that to you’ across the table. “He couldn’t do it.”

“Aren’t you the boy wonder?” Draco snorted.

“Dumbledore said it was because I could feel love, and grief and pity.”

“Well then wasn’t it his lucky day that two of his minions were raising a kid who couldn’t feel any of those things.”

“Wasn’t it mine that they failed,” said Harry. He didn’t see what he had to lose; he was sure by now even the slowest of them had the picture. Draco was pointedly ignoring him.

“Shit at defence against the dark arts, brilliant at potions,” said Draco. “I’ve heard that story quite a bit over the last year.” He drained the last of his glass. Harry watched him swallow. He wanted to grab him over the table and kiss him senseless.

“So, my existential angst aside, what are we going to do about the end of magic?”

  


~*~

  
Afterwards, when they were curled up in bed together, bonelessly tired and pleasingly sticky, Harry stroked his hand gently through the hair of the sleeping blonde beside him. “You are a piece of my soul,” he whispered softly. “You feel like a missing piece of my soul.”


	11. Chapter 11

**  
12 Grimauld Place, Chelsea, August 2003   
**

  


Draco had been twenty three for two months. Nobody was more surprised by this than him. Still, here he was, un-magical and un-chemically adulterated and very much involved in the processes of living in so much as he ate, slept, moved and breathed which was as good an indication as any that he was still alive. No fucking though. Potter was still holding out on that front.

Not that that really meant that much these days, other than that Potter was an infuriatingly stubborn bastard. They did other things. Potter was always willing to obey the letter of the law but ignore the spirit, in that much he hadn’t changed very much from the pasty little git who had knocked him back on the Hogwarts express. He’d give in one day. Draco humoured him, let him touch him up, kiss him in public. They kissed a lot; they way Potter kissed him could take him out of himself sometimes. He’d stand back breathless with his golden boy lips all bruised and luscious and Draco would think, after something that intimate, what’s the big deal about letting me stick my cock in that sweet skinny arse of yours?

  
They took long, hot baths together on Saturday afternoons when Potter didn’t have too much work to do. The old wizarding bathtub took hours to fill without magic. Draco knew Potter left guilty ten pound notes in the housekeeping jar afterwards. He could make him pay for that, but he decided it wasn’t worth it. He’d trade the chance to get even for an afternoon of being naked together in the warm water. He didn’t mind Potter could see everything, he knew he was going to see it all at some point anyway, and besides Potter had a decent enough collection of scars of his own to admire. The admiration inevitably turned to touching. Most of Potter’s scars had been made by monsters and dark magic. Most of Draco’s by the two men in the tub.

“You still keep your key on,” said Potter, touching the dull metal around his neck.

“Keeps the dementors away.” Draco twisted at Potter’s nipple, hoping to change the subject.

“Why didn’t you tell us sooner,” said Potter lazily. He wasn’t going to leave it. He was like a Niffler with a sickle. “Why did you leave it to Hermione to work out?”

“Because I don’t think I believe in souls anymore.” He sighed, it sounded theatrical even to him, “souls imply a higher power don’t they? I mean an order at least, even if you aren’t going to go as far as gods. And I don’t believe that. Not after Kings Cross.” He shrugged, making the water lap over Potter’s chest. “I mean, I’m a right arsehole but what see you next tuesday of a God could allow that to happen?”

“But you remember it. He tried to oblivate you and it didn’t work. You know what he did back then. How could you not believe that?”

“It was just something that was no longer relevant to my experience.”

Draco tried to snake his right arm down to cup the cheek of Potter’s arse. One way or the other, this conversation is changing, he thought. Potter wasn’t having it:

“When I was little, I used to make strange things happen. You know like growing my hair back after a bad haircut-,” he shifted his leg up. The expanse of raised thigh was just too appealing. Draco rubbed his own leg against it.

“It’s possible for you to have a good haircut?”

Potter kicked him.

“Worse,” he said, “than the usual state of affairs.” He smiled. “I ended up on the school roof once.”

“That’s nothing,” said Draco. “I used to end up funny places all the time. I gave Aunt Hildegard’s portrait a beard.”

“It’s nothing to you,” said Potter, pouting, noted Draco, “because you were from a wizarding family. Everybody expected it. But I was raised by muggles and nobody knew what was going on. They told me it couldn’t be happening. So I believed them, even though I knew it was.”

Potter covered his left hand with his own. Draco had never noticed that the scars formed words before.

  


~*~

  
He knew why Potter was pushing it. After the earlier breakthrough the committee was still making no progress. It made Potter antsy. He’d caught him, compiling lists at the table of possible solutions; he brought his work laptop home so he could constantly e-mail Granger. Potter did not play the waiting game well. Draco tried to distract him as best he could; he swore his knees were getting callused from under the desk blow-jobs, but still. Potter wasn’t sleeping. His hair was permanently spiked from having his hands in it, not that he seemed to notice. At this rate, he was going to make himself ill again, and Draco was damned if he was playing nurse elf this time.

Wednesday afternoon he walked into the kitchen and he was there.

“Shouldn’t you be at work?”

Potter had one hand on the work surface. He looked up at Draco.

“Fuck, you are ill.”

“No,” said Potter. “No I had to get some things.”

His voice was hollow.

“What things, what are you talking about Potter. You need to sit down.”

“I’ll go in a minute,” he said.

Draco walked up to the other man and tried his usual trick. Potter ducked out of his grasp, still standing there. His skin was almost grey. There was an e-mail print out next to him. Draco picked it up and glanced over it.

“Who’s Cassius Dumpole?”

“Used to drive the Hogwarts Express,” said Potter.

Well he won’t be driving anything anymore, thought Draco. He and his wife found dead at Malfoy Manor. No suspicious circumstances. A first for that place.

“You’ve snapped haven’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Lost it. You’re going to do something stupid.”

The force with which Potter shouted the next words nearly knocked him backwards. It was like being confronted by a fifteen year old.

“SITTING HERE IS STUPID. DOING NOTHING IS STUPID. SOMEONE NEEDS TO PUT A STOP TO THIS.”

“We don’t know how.”

“Well, I’ll make it up as I go along then, won’t I? It’s always worked for me before.”

“Potter, listen to me.” He evaded his grasp again. He was backing towards the door. Draco suddenly felt paralysed with fright. “You don’t have to die for people anymore Potter.”

“Oh no? And if I don’t who will? Ginny, she blacks out. You. You’re bloody terrified of the place.”

“You’ve lost your mind.”

“Yeah, yeah, like that time before. That time you told Rita Skeeter all about how crazy I was. Turned out I was right, wasn’t I?”

“It doesn’t mean I was wrong, Potter.”

Oh don’t rise now, Malfoy, he thought to himself. Of all times, don’t rise now. Potter was in the doorway. He had to get him back.

“We can work something out. We can come up with something that isn’t a suicide mission.”

“Too late. Time’s up.”

Draco took a deep breath. Whatever came out of his mouth next had to be good.

“What makes you strong isn’t your willingness to die for people, Potter. What makes you extraordinary is that you could live with those Muggles and still dream of magic.”

Potter was staring at him, wide eyed. And then he wasn’t there anymore. He was running away.

Not good enough, thought Draco. He stamped his foot. Bloody little petulant bastard that you are Malfoy. He ran down the hallway but Potter was gone. The scrawny git was still too fast.

~*~

Draco raided the housekeeping pot and got a taxi to King’s Cross station. There was a strange shiver to saying the words; he felt his palms sweat and crumple the money in his fist, the same feeling of daring and excitement he remembered from going to score. Moving took some of the pain away; scoring always took the worst of pain away, even before the first warmth coiled into his blood stream. He hoped to head Potter off, but even then he doubted it. Potter had always been faster than him. He knew now it was because he needed to be.

He caught himself chewing at his cuff as the car sat stalled at the lights, his insides knotting, that godawful sensation of every second that kept him from what he needed returning in full measure. He pulled his hand away from his mouth and stroked Luna’s key through the fabric of his shirt. Well here I am, he thought. A year and three quarters of fearing that you would drag me down to the depth of Kings Cross and now I’m chasing you down.

The lights changed and London once again became a blur of moving light.

  


~*~

  
He paid the taxi with the soggy money and ran down the metal tipped steps to the Underground station. He looked around the ticket hall as if he half expected Weasley to be stood here, but there was no sign of her. Shit, he thought. I’m going to have to ask one of the guards. None of his previous conversations with underground staff had been in any way successful. He stopped still and then caught himself. So, you think you’re going to take on the Fleet Line Ticket Inspectors, but you are too scared to speak to a plain old muggle one. He was still nervous as he approached the gate line. Weasley is bloody underground staff, he told himself.

“Excuse me,” he said. His voice sounded as brittle as glass. “But can you tell me if DSM Weasley is about?”

The guard smiled at him. He felt as if his legs were melting.

“She’s in the supervisor’s office,” he said, waving a very human looking hand in the direction of some mirrored glass windows. He nodded and sped off, hammering on the door.

“Weasley, have you seen Potter?”

She looked a bit perturbed by his distressed state as she opened the door. She stood back to let him hurry in to the poky little office full of tatty mismatched seats and overflowing folders.

“Yes, he was here about fifteen minutes ago. He said he dropped in for a cup of tea, although that seemed to be the last thing on his mind.” She indicated the barely touched cup of biscuit coloured liquid discarded on one of the filing cabinets. He took a deep breath.

“Okay Weasley, he said. “Potter’s gone down there. The stupid fucking bastard has gone all chosen one again and descended into whatever the fuck it is down there, presumably in some mistaken attempt to save the world.”

Weasley swallowed. “He’s been there before,” she said. “He’s survived that before.” Draco wasn’t buying it. He could see her body tense and her eyes flicker.

“Not my dementors he hasn’t,” said Draco. “If they’re mine you can bet your life they’re some right nasty bastards. And he hasn’t got a wand. Not one that would work, anyway.”

She stared into the bank of monitors. Greenish hued lights reflected back onto her red-head’s face making her look like some weird creature from the subterranean depth. He looked around the supervisor’s office. There was a pale green plant cascading orange flowers on the window ledge. He saw her follow his gaze.

“Neville gave it to me,” she said. “It needs very little light.”

“Let’s hope neither does Potter,” said Draco. He swallowed a mouthful of cold tea from the mug and felt the guards grow closer as the sugar hit his tongue. He was still alive when he drunk from this, he told them. He was still alive.

“He doesn’t,” said Ginny, “You know his story.” She paused and looked back at the monitor:

“I need to get down to him,” he said.

“Yes, you do.” She said. She got up and swung open a small metal box suspended on the wall and started rifling through the assorted sets of keys hanging within with obviously increasing frustration. “Fuck.”

“What?”

“He’s taken the keys to the Bridge sidings. That’s the only bloody one because only Duty Managers are supposed to go down there.”

“How would he know which key it was?”

“Because we label them, fuckwit.”

“What does it look like?”

“What does it matter what it looks like. It’s a standard yale key, gold, not that that makes much difference.”

“Does it look like this?” He grabbed the thin strip of leather around his neck and pulled out Luna’s key.

She looked wide eyed. Draco smiled grimly.

“Where did you get that from?”

“It’s the key to my room in City Roads. Luna did something to it. Enchanted it, I suppose we’d say, back in the day. It’s not a station key, but I’m damn sure it’ll get the door open.”

“Alright,” said Weasley, “but what can you do when you are down there. You’re no more able to use magic than Harry is. How are we going to work out a way when the extraordinary committee’s been stumped for the last four months?”

“You know this place, Weasel.” He said. She had pulled a strand of red hair out of her plait and was twining it between her fingers looking about the shabby room. He saw her eyes catch on a long, thin, varnished wood pole with a metal hook at the tip.

“Okay Malfoy, I’m not sure if this is going to work. Just try to act fast and get him out alive. You’re not the only one with the life debt, you know.”

She paused and picked up the pole, holding it in her hands like a weapon.

“What are expecting me to do, batter them?”

“No,” she said, “I’m going to think like the blood- traitor I am. And whatever I am I am still Arthur Weasley’s daughter.”

She ran towards the door.

“Come on Malfoy.”

  


~*~

  
They stood beside a metal door at the bottom of the escalators, staring at each other, both unexpectedly finding breath in short supply. The air around them was full of a strange crackle; Draco felt the prickle in the blood that must only ever occur before battle, not that he had been much of a fighter before. Sod rescuing Potter, he thought, I’m bloody channelling him. What the hell was in that tea anyway?

“Okay Malfoy, I’m going to turn the pumps off. That will trigger the alarms and get the muggles out of the station. Hopefully, I’ll have enough time in the confusion to do what I have to do before someone works out what I’m up to and arrests me.”

Weasley’s eyes looked very bright.

“You’ve got an hour, tops before the lower level floods.”

She handed him the hook tipped wooden pole.

“I can’t promise this will protect you, but remember to turn your back to it.”

He smirked.

“I’ve never been one for protection.”

She rolled her eyes. He bent down and kissed her cheek.

“ _Ave Mustela, morituri te salutant._ ”

He turned to the door and fitted Luna’s key into the lock. It gave. He walked into the darkness, hearing Weasley’s voice carried on the draft of the door clanging shut behind him.

“Or not.”

  


~*~

  
After he climbed down the metal ladder to the abandoned platform, Draco took the torch out of his mouth and looked around. At first he saw nothing but blackened brick, thirty years of London soot that caught in his throat, full of the underworld taste of hot bitter metal. He made his way along the platform until he came to the twin yellow boxes that Ginny had told him about. There were no screams, no bones, and no lingering smell of incinerated Potter. He took to that to be a good sign. He paused to tie the key back around his neck, then taking the torch in his left hand and switch lever in his right, headed down the platform ramp and into the mouth of the tunnel.

He walked down the sleepers for about two hundred yards, the air changing as the he moved away from the station, getting cooler and damper. He was aware he was going slightly downhill and eastwards, away from the main station building. He felt a new presence in the tunnel, for a moment he thought somebody was walking beside him. He realised it was his own fear.

Draco threw his head back and laughed. It echoed through the empty tunnels, hard and mad and without mercy. He had never heard his own voice sound so terrifying. I sound like Aunt Bellatrix, he thought.

I’ve lived with you too long, he hissed into the darkness. Tonight, only one of us comes out alive.

Fear continued to move alongside him, manifestly unimpressed.

As he got deeper, he noticed the railway smell retreating and a new one taking its place. It was sweet, pungently so, like the rotting apples on the floor of the old orchard. He kept moving forward between the dull gleam of the rails and it intensified; he recognised it as putrification. It was what he woke up to in Kings Cross, under his face, the infection spreading through the slimy abscess on the back of his hand. It was the squat in Grey’s Inn Road, Jamie’s gangrenous leg stinking the place out, Jamie’s foot foaming up through his trainers with each step he took. It was the stench of necrosis, the smell of death.

He wanted to vomit. The noisome air thickened in the tunnel ahead and formed into a pinkish sickly light. The light that rises from corpses and dead water thought Draco. He turned to look at fear and it was huge and black, filling up the tunnel behind him.

I survived that. He shouted out. I’m not a hero, I’m not a martyr, I’m not on the side of light. But I did survive that.

The sickly light wrapped itself around him. Now the tunnel walls were changing, furring up, covering in thick, greyish blobs, hanging from the arch of the roof. Here and there, they were fattening, ripening into the shapes of men, skeletal and bloodless. As he walked down further he had to duck to avoid the overhanging forms, swinging down like grotesque stalactites.

I am at the heart of Kings Cross. I am where the dementors breed.

In the distance he thought he could hear the faint sound of sobbing.

The light, the putrescent glow was enough to see by now. The rails ran down to a cross cavern, the ceiling moved from above him high into unknown. He was walking down to a river, brown and sewer smelling. The Fleet, his father had told him, the most deadly of all the lost rivers of London. His father, who was now down there somewhere - down with the dead beneath the water. Three drops on a man’s hand and he would be in your power for life. They used to sell it in little vials in Knockturn alley. And you know you’re in a bleak place indeed when the thought of that place cheers you up.

The light was coming from the water. The rails disappeared into it. The dementors must have disturbed the new drainage systems, knocked down the culverts, brought the river back to run in its former haunted channels.

On the other side of the water was a curled figure, with its head slumped on his knees. It was Potter, by the sound of things enjoying another of those family reunions that the dementors always brought on.

But you didn’t survive what he did, said the treacherous voice in his head. He found himself fighting a reckless urge to run into the water.

It’s not a fucking competition he yelled.

He steadied himself. Behind Potter the stone side of the cave was punctuated with many rough holes; black uniformed figures were sweeping in and out. Mission HQ of despair, Draco thought grimly. Here I am at the place where all magic ends.

Then he looked ahead and saw it, over the water, Battle Bridge. It looked ancient, and seemed to be covered in heavy mould. Many of its timber supports had broken, they rose out of the filthy water like rotten teeth, the whole edifice creaked and moaned as it swayed in an unseen tide. There were cross planks missing, but it still seemed possible to walk across. The black guards swept towards him and then fell back. Luna’s key protected him. Luna’s key kept them at bay.

He wondered how long Potter been there, and how much would be left if he could get him out.

Enough. Thought Draco. Enough.

He stepped onto the bridge. His voice sounded tiny in the echoing cave.

You can’t take his soul because a part of it still lives.

You can’t take his soul unless you take mine too.

You see, he told the darkness as he strode across the bridge, I’m the part of him he hates. I’m the part that’s devious; I’m the part that’s sneaky. I’m the part that’s a coward, that cries in the toilets, that runs away.

I’m the part that survived.

He crossed the water and knelt down in front of Potter, laying down the torch and the pole and taking his elbows. He chafed at them, stroking the icy skin beneath Potter’s jumper, willing his own living heat into the frozen body.

“Come on Potter, come on, come back and live you stupid Gryffindor bastard.”

The dementors were still swooping and they still could not come near.

He kept rubbing, moving in close, feeling the sobs still shuddering through the other, holding still and letting himself be steady against them.

“Don’t try to fight them Potter, don’t try and run. They didn’t kill you then and they can’t kill you now.”

Draco kissed the mess of black hair that was all of Potter’s head available to him. He felt the bubble of light, the one he had remembered Luna casting around them, or maybe that had just been his mind playing tricks, that day in City Roads. He saw that light now, even if it was just an illusion, even if it was only in his imagination. He knew it as a presence, as real as the damp floor beneath them and he knew the dementors would not be able to enter.

“They can’t touch you if you don’t try and fight them,”

He thought he felt a twitch run through the other’s body.

“You can feel my hands, can’t you? You can still feel that on your arms. It’s me. Feel that, just that, and let them say to you whatever they want to. Because they can’t hurt you. Not if you just listen and don’t try to fight.”

Potter lifted his head and looked up blearily.

“Draco?”

“That’s Malfoy to you.” He kept cupping the other’s elbows smoothing his thumbs along their sides. “Just listen and be frightened and don’t try to fight.”

He leant in and kissed him softly on his frozen, slobbery lips. Suddenly Potter pushed his arms up and grabbed the back of his head, pulling him in and opening his mouth, kissing him frantically, kissing the life back into his body, kissing the terror away.

“You – you came to rescue me?”

“Life debt’s a life debt, Potter.” They held on to each other for a few more moments before Draco pulled away. “Now come on. Time’s a bit funny down here, but I reckon we’ve got half an hour and a job to do. Can you stand?”

“I think so.”

He tucked the wooden pole through his belt and put the torch in his pocket before helping Potter gently to his feet. He held on to him as they walked through the dark archway ahead of them.

“Where did you learn to fight dementors, Draco?”

“Jedi mind trick.”

Potter snorted. He could feel him, shaking with suppressed laughter at his side.

“What in the world do you know about Star Wars, Malfoy?”

He’s calling me Malfoy again, thought Draco. That has to be a good sign.

“What are you going on about, Potter?”

“Star Wars, muggle films,”

“You’re babbling. One of the women said it down the junkie mums. We might still be crazy fucked up bitches, but we’re Jedi crazy fucked up bitches now.” He paused. “I rather liked her turn of phrase.”

“I hope that doesn’t make me Princess L – oh sodding hell.”

“Actually,” said Draco, “I think it’s King’s Cross.”

  
At the end of the tunnel there was blazing light, pure and clean, dazzling after their time spent in the gloom. For a moment, all Draco could see was the glare, as hash as crystal, but after a while his eyes adjusted and he saw white walls, smooth like marble, down the curving line, pale and perfected. He saw the round bore of a white tunnel, the sparkling platform cool and untouched by the scuffing of feet, the little plastic seats unsullied by chip wrappers, all shining with the peculiarity of newness and cleanliness.

“It’s a station,” said Draco.

“No,” said Potter. “It’s a tomb. Listen.”

It was a very low sound, a scrabbling sound, that fretful, gasping sound that babies make when the world is troubling. Scops used to make that noise all the time; he felt resentment swell up to meet it. Stop whining kid, the world is a horrible place. Get used to it.

Potter was walking down the platform. Draco trotted along to catch up with him. He could tell he was afraid, he could tell even though there was nothing about the way he moved or breathed that gave it away.

“I stole from you too,” he said.

“What are you dithering about now?”

But Potter was reaching into his pocket with a look of quiet triumph on his face. He pulled out a thin wooden stick; about twelve inches long, springy with an odd resilience.

“From the room in Moor Street - I took your wand from the room in Moor Street.”

“You’ve got a really nasty habit of taking my wands, Potter.”

“They always work for me. Dumbledore said it was because I defeated you.”

Draco snorted but tightened his fingers around it all the same.

“You think he was wrong don’t you?”

“You know he was wrong,” said Potter, stroking his arm. “We are down here on the premise that about some things at least, Dumbledore was wrong.”

“Lumos!” said Draco. As expected, there was no crackle of magic. Birch wood and Gryphon claw and a fat lot of good it is to me now, he thought. He still gripped it. It was still a token of where he had come from. And if it comes to it, he thought, at least I can die like a wizard.

The scrabbling sound was getting louder. Potter turned to the seats and he saw him flinch. He followed his gaze. There, in a cradle of rags was a tiny, ugly baby, raw with cradle cap, grizzling with the snuffling sound babies make when crying has proved pointless. He saw Potter’s hands shake, but he himself felt nothing except a detached, cold revulsion. He recognised it, it was the feeling he had had looking into the tank in Saint Mary’s hospital.

“Okay Potter, what do we do now?”

“It needs to get on a train,” said Potter, not taking his eyes off the suffering child.

Draco spun round as if he expected some ghostly locomotive to join them, but the station remained empty. He stared hopelessly at the station headwall, but it was blind and walled up. The rails ended in nothing but the red lights of the buffer stops. He turned back.

“No trains here.”

“It needs to go on,” said Potter, almost chanting the words.

Draco was silent for a moment.

“Put it in the river.”

“What, drown it?”

“No,” said Draco, “take down one of the posters and float it. The Fleet will know where to take it.”

“Just what are we doing Malfoy?”

“We’re putting an end to a crime,” he said. “To trap a soul, to force it to stay in stasis, away from the source, away from starting again, that is the greatest crime that a wizard can commit.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in souls?”

“Then it needs to go into the earth, to rot, to end, to become one with all that is living in the world.”

“Alright,” said Potter, “Alright.” Draco saw his adam’s apple move as he swallowed before he knelt down to the struggling thing, reaching out his arms and speaking softly. The child shrieked and lashed out with tiny, brittle claw tipped fingers, werewolf fingers, thought Draco, remembering the day in his father’s potion room. It’s raw, ulcerated mouth was filled with vicious spiky fangs. Potter jumped back, sponging at his bleeding hands.

“It bit me.” He said in shock. “We’re trying to help here, and it bit me.”

Draco found himself laughing. He fought to control the giggles knowing they were not doing anything for the fine mood Potter was probably brewing.

“Of course, Potter, of course. Do you think if Tom Riddle was ever able to accept help willingly given we would ever have ended up like this? If there had been help for him, Dumbledore would have got himself a very talented defence against the dark arts teacher, you’d still have your parents and we’d still hate each other’s guts.”

“Dumbledore tried to help him; there was always help in Hogwarts.”

“For those that know how to _ask_.”

“He made his choices.”

“Do you think so? Do you really think he chose this as his fate? Do you think you think I woke up one morning and thought I know, let’s kill my headmaster? Do you think Tara made choices that left her eight months pregnant in a car park? Do you think she even knew she had a choice? Do you think any of them do?”

“You told me once that this was your choice.”

“Yes well. Junkies lie, Potter.” He put his wand through his belt and handed the switch pole to Potter before pulling his coat off. “Now stand back, I’ve had more experience of dealing with screeching babies than you.” He threw his coat over the wailing bundle and then bunched it up around the lashing mass, lifting it into his arms. Potter nervously pulled the fabric away from its bald, flat head, mewling piteously, thumping its arms and feet through the fabric for all it was worth.

“Come on ugly,” Draco coaxed, “let’s get you out of here. Potter, try and get one of those big tube maps down.”

They walked back towards the river. The child was heavy; struggling always made them ten times heavier. Potter followed him with the chipboard sign in his hands, not looking at him, whether because of the baby or because of what he had just said, he didn’t know. The stench was all the more pungent from their temporary relief, walking into it was harder for the reprieve. He felt Potter move nearer as the air filled with black figures.

“Don’t touch the water.”

The Fleet was higher than when they left it, Ginny must have stopped the pumps. He saw Potter bend down and rest the cardboard on the bank with its edge in the torrent. He rested his boot on the improvised raft to stop in floating away, and lowered the bundle on to it, realising as he did so that there was no way he was getting his coat back. Well, if I get out of this the least the Ministry will owe me is a new coat he thought. The little creature was whimpering now, breaking free of its wrappers and waving its tiny impotent fists.

“Goodbye Tom Marvolo,” whispered Draco, and tried to straighten up. The child grasped out wildly with taloned hands, grabbing at the thin strip of leather hanging down from Draco’s neck. He cried out and stood up, kicking the raft into the water, swearing he saw a flash of red in the raw, bruised eyes. There was a faint splash and he put his hand to his bleeding throat. Luna’s key was in the water.

“Run!” screamed Draco, but it was too late. The swirling black figures were now coming right at them, blocking out the light from the river, blocking out the air with the stink of mortified flesh. He didn’t have the mind to try and block them them, not that many, not that choking.

Potter was almost over the bridge and he caught a last glimpse of the little boat sailing away into the darkness before he was on the bridge too and the world was full of ice and darkness.

He blinked and tried to run onwards, but the creature that swirled up from the foul water beneath him was easily seven foot, huge. It was between him and Potter. He couldn’t get over the bridge and his wand was bloody useless. He couldn’t even try to batter it; Potter had the section switch pole. It reared up before him, black booted and leather gloved, an animated dark uniform with a white mask suspended between the peaked cap and the collar.

The mask had a mouth, a grinning, yawning hole in the porcelain face. The lipless mouth did not move, but it didn’t need to, the voice filled his head without a sound:

 _I can give you oblivion._

 _Isn’t that what you so very badly wanted?_

Nausea knocked him sideways; his left hand clung to the slimy side of the bridge, his vision had gone foggy. He looked at the water surging beneath him, tugging at the bridge’s foundations. The river was coming up to meet them. Not long now, he thought, not long now.

He wanted to shout to Potter to run, to get away, to go find Ginny, but he could no more shout than he could move. The darkness was boiling around him with black figures, the sucking breaths of the dementors filing the echoing chamber. He slid on to his knees. Down into the water, finished like his father, down into death that was obliteration.

 _You’re bad Draco. You’re rotten to the core. And you know what the big joke is? You weren't even good at being bad._

The black clad figure was bearing down on him, and suddenly, he wasn’t there anymore. He was in the dark in the Railway Lands, under the York Way arches. He was bleeding, shaking all over, nearly doubled up with cramp. He hoped the blood didn’t put the punters off. His wrists hurt from being held down. He had to do another punter so he could get a bag and they weren’t stopping, nobody was stopping. He could feel fear swooping down on him and he was crying into the street, please don’t leave me with this. Please don’t let me have to feel this. Please don’t. Please.

 _Poor little boy that never knew how to protect himself._

The creature’s scabbed had touched his cheek and the side of his face went numb. Automatically, he turned his face away.

Five pounds extra if you want to kiss.

There was the pale blue metal disc that had been in the leaflet room leaning on the bridge’s railings. He blinked. It was still there.

Draco slipped his left arm into the leather carrying straps. He didn’t know why, he felt like it was the right thing to do.

 _How did you ever think you could defeat us? You can’t even cast a simple patronus charm._

The creature was so close now he could smell its fetid breath. Any minute now, it will be all over. Any minute now the pain will all be gone. The bridge lurched beneath him. He could hear the water, starting to roar.

“One uses other methods,” he hissed and smashed the metal shield up into the dementors face. It reeled back, screeching. Draco got up off his knees sliding a little on the slippery planks before he could get upright. The dementor lunged at him again and repulsed it again, beating it backwards with the metal wheel. He didn’t know what he was saying; crazy words tumbled out of him like the river’s howl:

“No,” he snarled. “I can’t fight you. But you can’t take me either. I am the master of the Railway Lands and you cannot destroy me.”

He pushed the monster back with the shield. He could hear the creature laughing in his head, weaker now, but still present. It reached out its great arms towards him, to seize him, to knock him off the bridge. He planted his feet firmly on the bridge, braced in combat position, although his legs did not feel wholly like his own.

 _Let me kiss you, little boy or let me throw your broken body into the Fleet and make you the servant of the dementors forever._

“Did you know,” said Draco narrowing his eyes, “I get my blonde hair from Mother?”

He never thought he’d heard a dementor say “huh?” before. Then it struck down on him again. There was a gust of foul air and his bones shuddered with the impact as the iron wheel shattered, sending a pulse of sickening pain shooting up his side. He staggered sideways and nearly fell.

“ _Expecto Patronum_ ,” shouted Potter.

Nothing happened, but the noise made the dementor whip his head around. Draco struck out hard with the shattered wheel, leaping into the air and catching the hard jagged metal on the creature’s neck, knocking it to its knees.

“You are made from me and I am your master. I am the master of the Railway Lands. Respect your master.”

The dementor tottered. Its mask had been shattered by the blow and there was nothing but grey skin where the face should have been. It no longer had a mouth to kiss with. It slid dumbly towards Draco like a fangless snake, ready to coil at his feet and overcome him.

“Respect the Railway Lands from which you were made.”

He reached out his right hand to touch the scabbed flesh.

“Return to the Railway Lands from where you came.”

The chill from the creature’s body soaked into his blood.

“I command you return to me.”

Icy grey smoke curled up his arm, numbing it, filling it with a cold that was beyond misery. There was a sigh, which could just have been the noise of heavy fabric falling, because when he could look again all that was before him was an empty uniform on the swaying bridge. He felt very, very sick and he couldn’t feel his fingers.

“Potter,” he gasped. “Potter it’s time to go.”

Potter was standing there, staring at him idiotically. Draco could see the other dementors, angry now, swooping over. He could feel the despair welling again in his mind. Fuck, I’m not doing that again, he thought.

“Ruuuun,” he shouted awkwardly and Potter seemed to get the message. They ran up the empty tunnel, Potter letting out an involuntary cry as the embryonic dementors brushed against them. He had switched the torch on, a pathetic circle of light from bobbed in front of them as they ran, the black cloud of swooping dementors blocking the sickly river-light from behind.

Coming up ahead torch light reflected on the old station limits signs, dusty blue numbers showing the carriage lengths into the platform. Eight, Seven, Six

“You can’t outrun dementors,” Potter panted.

Five

“Potter, you’re the fastest fucking seeker -,"he gasped, "If anyone can, you can."

Draco’s chest was burning, his mouth tasted awful and he wasn’t sure how the hell he was still moving forward.

Four

“What about you?”

“I’m on your tail Potter.”

Three

“I’m always right behind you.”

Potter had grabbed his arm and was dragging him along now.

“They couldn’t take my soul, you know,” he said, wasting precious breath on the bloody obvious. Draco grunted.

Two

They could hear the river splashing behind them, under the wheeling dementors. It must have burst its banks at last. They had minutes until the tunnel started to flood.

“Give me the switch pole, Potter.”

One

He grabbed the pole back off Potter. Moving his hand was like moving something alien, he saw his fingers grasp the wood but registered no feeling of pressure. He sprinted up the platform ramp to the yellow boxes. Please let this work, the thought, oh God, please let this work. He scrabbled awkwardly at the front of the box with his numb fingers until it came open, spun round and slammed the current connection home. A halo of white arcing light encircled him and he was blown upwards into the brightness and burning.

~*~

“Hm,” said Draco. “Hmm,” His head hurt and he couldn’t get his left eye open. Potter was leaning over him. He seemed to be blubbering again. Draco’s mouth was full of blood. He could hear a horrible screeching sound, one that went right to the back of his teeth and ached there. Acrid black smoke was belching out of the disused tunnel’s mouth.

Potter kissed his forehead.

“Weasley’s idea,” he hissed. “Blitz them with water and electric.” He twitched the working corner of his mouth. “There’s more power going through there than there should be. Clever girl, you know.”

Potter’s mouth was against his broken face, wet and salty.

“What?” said Potter.

“Something very muggle, I swear, she spoke Muggle. Inhibitor over-ride loops and god knows.”

“Did she know?” his hand was on his side. It felt nice to be touched.

“No. As in did she know what would happen if you tried to force a connection with that much power behind it? No.”

“Because no fucker’s been stupid enough to try.”

“She didn’t know, Potter. We knew it was - unpredictable, but we both agreed. This had to stop.”

“Do you think it’ll work?”

“They’re dying aren’t they?” Potter brushed the hair off his forehead like his mother had done that time he had fallen off his broomstick.

“Yes,” said Potter, “I think they are.”

Draco twitched his right hand a little and Potter got the hint and took it, holding Draco against him. The smoke was catching in his throat.

“You need to go.”

“No,” said Potter, “no.”

“Scops – Potter, Scops needs – he’s probably a bloody werewolf and he needs – someone to look out for him.”

“I’m sick of raising the dead’s children. I’m not leaving you here to die alone.”

“Oh Potter,” he coughed, “I’m the junkie. Dying was never a problem for me.” He tried to smile. “It was always living that was the bitch.”

Potter ran his fingers over the scars on the underside of his wrist, seemingly oblivious to the fact the arm was broken and hurt like hell.

“I don’t want to leave you.”

“Get up that ladder, Potter.”

The stupid bastard's face was all over him, covering him in kisses. It hurt a lot and his mind kept trying to fall backwards but he didn’t mind too much. He realised he was crying too, and that Potter was kissing away his tears, and for the first time in a very long time he didn’t feel frightened, but he felt very sad to be leaving.

He pinched Potter’s hand. He could hear the electrified water lapping the platform sides.

“Go,”

Then Potter did something extraordinary. He laughed.

“Go,” hissed Draco. The station was now hazy with smoke. If Potter waited much longer he’d be dead before he got to the top of the ladder.

“No,” said Potter.

“Have you lost your mind?”

“Yes, yes, both of us. We’re both mad as a box of chocolate frogs.” He laughed again. “Can you feel that?”

“I’ve just been fried alive Potter, feeling isn’t exactly my strong suit right now.”

“No,” said Potter, sitting up now and lifting Draco, awkwardly, agonisingly, into his lap. “That.”

Draco shut his eyes against the pain. It was true, there was something buzzing in Potter’s pocket.

“Pleased to see me?” he was slurring. Very soon the words would go away all together.

“No Malfoy, Look.”

He felt Potter moving behind him and it bloody hurt. His hand came to rest on Draco’s chest. He blinked his good eye open. There was a white ball spinning wildly in the palm of his hand.

“Whut?”

“Mad-eye’s eye. I put it in my pocket so I would have something to let me know, you know, if it worked.”

“’S quite a smart idea for you.”

Potter kissed him again.

“Magic,” smiled Draco. “Still no way I can apperate in this state.”

Potter was grinning wildly. “What’s that on your arm, Malfoy?”

“Shield,” muttered Draco.

“Uh huh,” said Potter. “ _Accio Lift!_ ”

“Potter, - half a mile away...”

A loud thump and a hail of crumbling brick fragments gave lie to that statement. There was a whoosh of metal and a bright light and that bloody woman’s voice again bidding him mind the doors to the muggle smelling interior. Muggles, plastic soles, hairspray and that awful food they eat. He decided now would be a very good time to pass out.

 **  
University College Hospital, London, 4th September 2003   
**

  
Draco stirred and recognised the familiar underwater lull of opiates. Something was annoying him. Potter. It was Potter again, ruining his buzz. He could hear bleeps that even in his drugged state splintered into his brain. Breathing burned, but he found he couldn’t stop, even if he wanted to. There was pressure, soft and shifting moving over his forehead. Sometimes it was there and sometimes it was not. There was some kind of blockage in his nose. He blinked open his functioning eye.

“Malfoy.”

Even in the darkness he knew it was Potter. Nobody else could touch him like that. There was a mask on his face and he couldn’t speak.

“Can you swallow?”

He made some indistinct noise through the ventilator. Now is really not the time, Potter.

“I brought a potion,” said Potter tightly, clearly registering from experience something of what Draco would have replied. “It’s from Slughorn. He’s no Snape, but he’s the best we’ve got.” He felt a hand slip under his aching shoulders. Doesn’t look like I have much choice, does it? Typical Potter.

“I think this is going to hurt,” said Potter nervously. He pulled the clear mask off Draco’s face and the air constricted. He was suffocating, gasping painfully to make the air come and nothing did. He tried to grab out at Potter’s hands wildly to make him put the mask back, but his body was not responding to orders.

Potter pushed a flask against his struggling mouth, rubbing at his tensing throat. He didn’t so much swallow as stop fighting for a moment, allowing some of the liquid to flow down. Draco cried out; he was being embarrassing and Potter was no Madame Pomfrey. He had the urge to bite him.

“It’s okay, I cast a silencing charm.”

Bastard. Draco whimpered. He wanted to snap back but all that came out were animal noises.

It was soft at first, the feeling of magic working inside him. It started as just a slow warmth, the soothing sensation of a missing element returning to his body as he lay still. He realised even without the mask, breathing was getting easier. Pretty soon he could feel it all the time, that conscious awareness of healing, of damaged flesh becoming whole that had once been so familiar.

“Where’s Weasley?” he gasped.

“Ginny’s fine,” said Potter. “Arthur went down to Holborn Police station to collect her.” He wiped a stray dribble from Draco’s lip with his thumb. “She was in the anti-terrorist cells, can you believe it?”

She bloody deserves to be, thought Draco, feeling his battered legs returning to his consciousness.

“How?”

“He had paperwork,” Potter smiled. “Whatever was necessary, he had it.”

“Confundus?” said Draco.

“He said he just had – the needed documents.”

Draco lay back on the pillows and had some more oxygen. Despite the pain, he was starting to feel comfortably sleepy. He wondered idly if Potter would stay with him while he slept. Potter lifted the mask off again.

“That’s it,” said Potter when they were done. “Well until another four hours when we have to do it all over again. It should be easier next time though.”

He tried to look around. Something was bothering him. He realised what it was.

“How the bloody hell did you get in here anyway? They barely let in Mother and that was for minutes.”

Potter smiled and kissed his cheek. He looked sickeningly smug and Gryffindor.

“I have an invisibility cloak.”

Draco snorted and thought his nose would fall off his face. He wouldn’t be trying that again in a hurry. Potter’s hand was stroking his cheek.

“I love you, Draco Malfoy.”

There was really no call for that. Potter pulled him towards him awkwardly. It was completely the wrong angle, but he rested his head against Potter’s shoulder all the same. He thought he might be smiling.

“I lied to you, you know.”

“Hm?” said Potter, lazily stroking his back. It felt very good to be held like this, even if inside he still felt very bruised and sore.

“About what I was doing in the room of hidden things. I was actually going after Crabbe. Not that saving your life wasn’t a priority, but it wasn’t my only one.”

“I still love you,” said Potter. He was insufferable.

“Will you listen? I knew Alecto Carrow had taught Vincent to use fiendfyre and I guessed she had instructed him, on a strict command to use it in that room. The Carrows were good at following orders and not asking questions why, and Vincent – well, the dim-witted son of a minor Death Eater was pretty expendable.” He paused. Breathing was hurting again. He let himself rest against Potter for a few minutes to recover himself. “They weren’t really too bothered about whether he worked out how to get out after.”

“Bit like you,” said Potter.

“No, nothing like me Potter. You see, Hogwarts was like a living thing. It needed the room of hidden things to stay magical. It needed that, all its failures and broken things to keep functioning. Voldemort worked that out, and he had got too sloppy around me to stop me from working it out too.”

“Carnifex Mundi.”

“Yes, although I don’t think that was his original plan. He knew he could never control Hogwarts, not fully, not even Salazar Slytherin managed that, there was just too much of the other founders in the mix. And anything he could not dominate completely had to be destroyed.”

“Very much like you.”

“Will you shut up? Some of us don’t have the breath to waste. Voldemort had made his mind up at last; Hogwarts had outlived its sentimental value. It had to go. Of course, should he die, the destruction would feed into the curse, but his plan was very much not to die.”

“But there was still a horcrux in the room of requirement, and when Voldemort came to Hogwarts, he knew it was one of only two remaining. Why would he order the room of requirement destroyed if it would weaken him?”

“Potter – he didn’t. Vincent had strict orders, to fire the room on command, and only on command. Even you noticed he wasn’t the deepest cauldron in the set. When he knew battle had been declared, he knew he had a mission and he set out wands blazing to do it. – Ouch.”

“Sorry,” said Potter. He had tried to take his hand on the covers and like the idiot he was aimed for the broken one. He moved his hand up to stroke Draco’s shoulder.

“Better,” he hissed.

“Why are you telling me this?”

Draco sighed and rolled back to the pillows. Potter wasn’t half dense sometimes.

“Just so you know. Wizards – they’re like Hogwarts. I wouldn’t want you to get any ideas in your head that I have developed heroic tendencies after that bridge business. Stop laughing Potter, this is serious. If I’d not done it, I’d have lost my magic. So that’s why I had to keep – the Railway Lands - in me because living like a squib while everybody else was whipping their wands out at the first instance, I didn’t fancy it. You really can stop laughing any time you want to.”

“No,” said Potter, still quaking in mirth, “you’re right. And you just know it, don’t you? At the time, I mean. You know what it is you have to save, even if it’s the very thing you most hate.”

“That better not be me you’re talking about Potter.”

“I’ll shut up then.”

Potter leaned over the pillows and kissed his lips, one gentle, tender kiss. He gasped. He felt a hand gently stroke his damaged chest and then go back to his hair. Potter’s lips touched his forehead as he pulled the air mask back onto his face. As breathing became easier, the pillows suddenly became hopelessly inviting and warm. He shut his eyes and let himself sink into them.

“You are the thing I love most in the world.”

He was drifting now, downwards, away from the shocks and the aches and into a quieter world. There was still pressure on his forehead.

“It’s going to be alright, Malfoy. You, the world, everything. It’s all going to be alright.”

Draco smiled. For the first time he truly believed him.


End file.
